


Children

by Pebblysand



Category: Silk (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2018-11-03 20:51:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 102,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10975092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pebblysand/pseuds/Pebblysand
Summary: "'Whatever we are', she thinks, and it rings true, in her ear, like Billy's words used to when he called them 'the kids' and invented them as an item, as an 'us' bubbling under their skin."Post Series 3. Martha/Clive. - Chapter 11 is up. This work is finished.





	1. i

**Author's Note:**

> Although I have been living in Ireland for a bit, English is not my first language and my English is mostly American. Obviously, even if I’m writing British English for this particular fic, there may be some phrasing/grammatical mishaps along the way. I deeply apologize for this, and please don’t hesitate to point them out to me in comments, I’ll be happy to edit :). Lastly, my lovely, lovely beta unfortunately doesn’t watch Silk so this is un-beta-ed. Again, many apologies for any typos/inconsistencies in the fic. Same let-me-know-in-the-comments policy applies to them, of course.  
> Hope you like it!

 

_The cleaners are coming one by one,_

_You don’t even want to let them start._

_They are knocking now upon your door,_

_They measure the room, they know the score,_

_They’re mopping up the butcher’s floor of your broken little hearts._

O Children – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

 

 

 

When she thinks about him, she thinks about them, and all she sees is children. A boy and a girl and her pale skin against his cheek, pulling at each other's hair, laughing, loud, like Nick and Niamh on court benches, school benches and the autumn leaves scattered around their feet. Well, she’s _old_ , now, and wise. The weight of the air digs into her shoulders and it’s hard to sit up straight, stare into the reflection of her blue eyes and not see ghosts.

 

She doesn't jump when she feels him sit next to her. She recognises the weight, after twenty years, the way his body awkwardly fits into tiny chairs, his long legs extending a good foot further than hers. She refuses to look away from the row of empty aeroplanes that spreads out in front of the window, briefly wonders how he got through security. It's too late — or so, so early, — and maybe, just maybe, if she ignores him until 6 am when her flight leaves, he might disappear.

 

"Mrs Sheridan," he says. His voice is hoarse, tired, loud, drums like a demonstration in an empty terminal. A family of four are sitting in front of them: the parents, and a boy and a girl, light hair, blue eyes, quietly playing with their toys. There are two types of people who are very early for flights, she decides. "She taught Prep School,” Clive says. “Had the greatest pair of tits I'd ever seen.”

 

She hears a practised smile curve at the corner of his mouth in the way he speaks, like sugar in his voice. It’s one of those stories he’s told dozens of times, she reckons, one of the ones that make people simultaneously roll their eyes and think they couldn’t spend another minute of their lives without him. Her own mouth's tight in a thin line, lipstick worn out long ago; she's not sure what to say (is very rarely sure what to say, these days).

 

"It's my speech," he adds. In front of her eyes, a plane moves. "For when women ask me if I've ever been in love."

 

It’s odd how well she knows him. Knows him like the back of her hand, how he functions. Knows that he’s prepared this, in his head, ran it over a hundred times like she would have with her own opening arguments; knows that that was his kicker, his _only possible verdict_ , the thing that was supposed to make her look back at him.  

 

Clive’s a good lawyer, too, because she almost does. Feels the need to look into his eyes burn in her stomach and consciously makes herself blink it away.

 

"I've never been in love, Martha. I don't know what to do.”

 

_Yeah,_ she thinks, the sound of her own thoughts cold in her head. _Not that. Not what you did,_ are the first words that come to mind; she lets them melt at the tip of her tongue. Her voice is quiet when she speaks. "I'm done, Clive. I'm not coming back."

 

She knows him like the back of her hand but she’s learnt to read him, too. With time, learnt how his body takes hits, quickly recovers. He ducks his head, nodding, and she recalls how they used to play rock, paper, scissors, when they were kids – pupils, - betting on drinks, cases, on who would stay up all night doing the nightmarish research due the next day. Their hands balled up in a fist behind their backs, staring into each other’s eyes; it’s how she came to interpret his sighs, his body language, understand that he expected her to say this, expected her certainty, unappealable verdict.

 

Expected is good, for him, expected means he's got arguments prepared. "Harriet and I, we," he starts. She tenses in her seat. "We never intended to throw you out, Marth. I don't know,” he trails off, reconsiders, goes straight to the point. She’s always liked that about him. “We always saw you staying on as defence counsel. We took CW on even when we mostly did defence, there's no —"

 

“Yeah, that worked out well," she snaps, interrupting. Wishes she could light up a cigarette, find something to do with her fingers. She's always found that sarcasm sounded better with the smell of tobacco lingering in the air.

 

He sighs. "If you put the word out that you're looking to jump ship —"

 

“No.” She says, shooting him a death glare that cuts him off mid-sentence. _Billy_ , she thinks, and _Shoe Lane is family_.

 

She can almost hear the steel of the armour he’s trapped himself in bend to the sound of his breaths, elbows set on his knees, a hand over his forehead, his face in his hands. “Okay,” he barely mutters past his teeth, shaking his head and she’s taken back to the pub, years ago, when his hair was longer and hers was too, and ' _fuck me_ , _Marth,'_ she hears him say, in her head _._

 

He seems to hesitate, the pendulum in his head oscillating between saying something and not; he does, in the end (always does.)

“You don’t need to run away again,” he sighs, almost disappointedly, not an order or a plea. Perhaps, she’d have liked him to be begging, she muses: it would have played into that fantasy she had as a teenager, of a tall and handsome boy running after her under the rain in the street, pleading her not to go. Perhaps, she’d have liked him to be authoritative: it may have helped her muster up strength she doesn’t have anymore, built her tougher than she ever was.

He’s right, though, she knows, but only partly.

 

“I do,” she tells him. She needs to run, doesn’t _want_ to. He’d mentioned it himself before, after all, that she’d burn out, collapse crying on her bathroom floor. He was right about that, she knows, cases like Sean’s, people like him, and Harriet, and Billy, they’ll kill her, one day. Not literally, but there’ll be a point without a way back, where she won’t even have the strength to make it to the airport again. She’s no Elizabeth, after all; she’s not as strong as she thought she was. “I am running away,” she reaffirms, her voice cold, clear as the skin of her wrist, the blood coursing underneath. She’s running away, but not _again._ For the first time in her life, actually, she’s running from Sean and Chambers and her losses and mistakes, and just like the fact that there are things that a woman should never _calm down_ about, just like there are times when anger and resentment are justified, there are times when it’s _right_ to walk away.

 

“No. You ran away from me. You never said no, never gave me the hint of an adult conversation; we were all trying to protect you and you –”

 

“Don’t.” It’s the aforementioned strength again, the one she can’t muster up anymore, the finger that snapped and isn’t being mended. She looks at the gate and the blinking lights of her flight to Frankfurt, sees her toes dipping between sand and water on a beach somewhere far, far away. _Don’t make me do this,_ a voice pleads in her head. _Don’t make me fight you._ The words resonate in her ears, the words she wants to say and the words she might have said, the angry slurs and the verbal punches to his face. They beg to come out, cruel and bloody, digging holes into his flesh. She could bite on her lip so hard to repress them it would fill her mouth with that familiar metallic taste that she’s trying so strenuously to leave behind. It’s a different kind of power, she’s learning, to standby.

 

She looks around and the man who runs the café in front of Gate 22 turns the espresso machine on, the steam coming out in a rush. It must already be 4, she thinks, feels Clive shake his head, thinks he must be about to leave but, "look at me," he says, instead. Pleads, too.

 

So, she does. Thinks she’s strong enough to, but blue meets blue and suddenly, all she can see is the sadness in his eyes. Not the lost, sad puppy look that he always gives her, or the fake angry outrage he gives all the young ones and his stupid death row pick up line. It's something more, something hopeless, like the fight's all gone and done, and lost, somehow. Her breath catches in her throat as she feels his hand in her hair, brushing a blonde strand behind her ear and she lets him. Smiles, even, weak, and her heart breaks, too. "I meant everything I said,” he pauses. “You know that, right?”

 

She wonders what he’s referring to: the good? The bad? The ugly? Wonders if she’s supposed to believe that he’s never ever lied to her, not once over the span of fifteen years. Maybe it’s true, maybe not outright, at least. Maybe she’s the bad guy, the bent copper, the one fighting restlessly for what’s right couldn’t even redeem. His eyes are red, she notices, and this is exactly why she didn't want to look at him: it's only going to be that much painful to look away. _Say it again_ , she thinks. Those words too, they burn her lips begging to get out, it would be so much easier, to know that she’s not alone, that there’s someone out there who still loves her.

 

Her eyelids shut, for a second. "I know," she says, instead.

 

His hand is warm as he grabs hers, tight, letting their fingers intertwine. She doesn't know how long they stay like this, how many people fill the gate around them, but for a short while, she feels the time stop. With her eyes closed, she can almost forget he’s not a friendly face, anymore.

 

His phone interrupts the moment, eventually, and she pulls away, counting to five, biting her lip to keep the tears in her eyes from rolling down her face. "Yes," she hears Clive respond to a murmur of words she can't quite make out. Jake's voice, though, she recognises. "Yeah, I'll be there in an hour," he says, hanging up.

 

She doesn't feel him move immediately, though, feels him fidget, restless, like he's looking for the right words. It’s funny this game they have for two people who speak for a living.

 

“Billy,” he begins, shakes his head again.

 

“Let me go.”

 

As she speaks, she sees his Adam’s apple move as he swallows. The decision’s in his hands, she muses, passive, when she begs him with a look. _Let me go._  

 

But Clive’s selfish, too. She braces herself for the worst, knows before he even speaks that her escape window has just closed. "Billy’s in the hospital, Marth,” he tells her. “Don’t go.”

 

.

 

For two days after that, she spends every waking minute (and there are a lot, of waking minutes — she barely sleeps, her head against the wall, her back painfully stuck on a hospital chair) wishing she'd boarded that plane anyway, and never looked back. Wishing she were strong enough, uncaring enough to be stuck for over twenty-four hours in a box thirty-five thousand feet above ground because at least she could have pretended that none of this was really happening. That Billy wasn't lying on a cold hospital bed, his head resting on a couple of pillows, the blue sheets covering his body, the sun barely coming through.

 

She blames Clive for it. Doesn’t expressly tell anyone but she blames him when she passes him in the corridors, blames him as she looks away every time he tries to provide a pointless ounce of comfort, blames him for taking advantage of a moment of weakness and ignoring the fact that her decision was made, that she’d finally managed to save herself, like they all meant to save her. She goes over it again and again until she repeatedly doses off on her chair, because it’s easier than admitting that she could still have ignored him. That she chose to stay. She couldn’t leave. He knew she couldn’t, not after what he’d said about Billy, and he used it as a weapon against her to make her stay, like the coward that he is.

 

It’s easy to hate him when she’s standing outside the hospital, chain-smoking, a lighter borrowed from a doctor sinking into the pocket of her jeans. He tries to grab her hand, make her look at him. She steps aside, kills her cigarette against the wall.

 

“Fuck you, Clive,” she enunciates, clearly, blowing smoke in his face before walking away. In the lift back to Billy’s room, she remembers that night, in Nottingham, her body was pressed between his and the wall, his mouth wet against her collarbone. He’d gotten her so worked up she thought she was going to embarrass herself, coming just at the touch of his lips. She mumbled a gasp; he nibbled at her ear.

 

‘What was that?’ he smiled and she caught herself laughing, cursing him in her head.

 

‘Fuck me, Clive,’ she said and heard him laugh, too, his chest moving against hers. He gladly obliged, though, didn’t he?

 

.

 

Billy’s lost weight, she notices. They're feeding him through a tube, and there's a dead light at the corner of his eyes, it makes her look away.

 

"Miss," he mutters, when she enters the room. His voice is low, breathing laboured. He reaches out for her hand and she squeezes it as strong as she can, tries to engrave that memory in her brain, wishes for time to stop and never run away. She's a waitress now, puts the drinks and bread on the table and wishes there was enough time to wait for the food.

 

"I'm not sure I'm going to be a miss for much longer, Billy," she confesses and there's something freeing about saying it, about admitting doubt, admitting how lost she actually feels. She'd always thought this would be her whole life, from the age she was twenty-two. The bar, Billy, and Clive. She thought they were going to be there forever, too.

 

"Oh miss, you'll always be a miss for me," he says, and there's the shadow of a smile on his face. There’s a lump in her throat, too, and she has to remind herself that she’s not one of those women who cry anymore.

 

"I'm sorry," she tells him. His eyebrows rise, just a little, like he has no idea what she's talking about, what she possibly could be sorry for. He squeezes her hand tighter, she feels. "I didn't fight, I couldn't fight, I'm sorry," she says. Her voice is strangled, keeping herself at bay; it almost makes it impossible to breathe.

 

"Nothing," he coughs, brings the oxygen mask back onto his mouth for a bit. She waits. "Nothing to be sorry for, Miss," he finally articulates; she has to lean in to hear it. His other hand presses the pump for painkillers, she notices. Still _, unconditional love_ , she hears in his voice, sees in his eyes; it makes it a bit easier to exhale somehow.

 

Ten minutes later, they're interrupted by his sister, a tall woman with shoulder-length dark red hair and a sad look on her face. Without necessarily intending to, she makes Martha feel out of place, like an impostor, watching Billy as they check his vitals. She stands up, grabs her handbag, biting her bottom lip. "I'm glad you made it, Miss," Billy says and she can't bring herself to look into his eyes, take the comment for what it is.

 

She glances at her watch. "I'll go change, I’ll be back in an hour," she says, nodding at him.

 

The corner of his mouth twitches; she pretends not to notice the long silence that follows. "Bye, Miss," he tells her as she opens the door. She smiles, doesn't find the strength to say the words back.

 

.

 

The thing is, the thing she’d forgotten about herself, is that she’s not not a crier. Has never actually been one of those iron clad women that people seem to think she is, one of the ones who walk in and out of court like nothing ever gets to them, like anger and injustice, and sadness don’t drive tears rolling down their faces. When she started out at the bar, her main problem was that her voice would always catch in her throat, out of stress or frustration; she would have to make herself pause, swallow, and breathe out before she continued. She taught herself this trick, hiding it behind a harsh comeback, focusing the attention elsewhere, or taking a discreet sip of water. Maybe that’s when the misjudging started happening, she reflects, when people started calling her a cold-blooded bitch behind her back. She put up this angry front, played with it and the aura it gave her and the tears disappeared out of the professional arguments as quickly as they’d come. She became someone else, someone she thought was stronger, smarter in her retorts, never letting herself cry in front of anyone ever again. When the tears did come, sometimes still, she let them go holding her own body in the quiet of her flat, listening to Joy Division.

 

She only ever broke that rule once, didn’t she? When her belly hurt so much, cramping like someone had thrust a knife through it, that she had to trust another person with her feelings, and that clearly hadn’t been a good choice, now, had it?

 

When she gets the call forty-five minutes later, she’s in the middle of her kitchen, getting ready to leave, and collapses on the floor with her face between her hands, unable to see, unable to speak. “He’s gone,” she hears Jake’s voice say in her ear and lets the phone drop by her side, the batteries tumbling out as it hits the floor. She finds herself rocking her small frame back and forth, her eyes a waterfall.

 

.

 

On a late second thought, she drags herself to the funeral, one morning, pushes the only dress that she owns down her body, her lips pale, dark circles under her eyes that she doesn’t even try to hide. The service has already started when she gets there. She walks in and the crowd is overwhelming, packed at the back of the church like a stack of bowling pins waiting to be blown away, like the whole of Middle Temple made it before her. She spots Clive sitting in the front row, with Jake and Billy’s sister closer to the aisle, there’s an empty space there by his side, she notices. She stands on tiptoes as she walks to an empty hidden corner to her right, tries as much as she can to kill the echo of her heels, hoping no one hears her.

 

She doesn’t cry, not during the service, or at least she doesn’t feel it. If they’re there, the tears don’t even hurt anymore; her face has been constantly red and burnt since it happened. She’s staring out blankly when the Priest lets them know it’s time to hold hands and share and cherish, and love again, and she doesn’t know how she’s ever going to be able to do that. Some strange bloke in a suit and tie she’s never seen before takes her fingers in his and she closes her eyes and lets herself imagine for a short, merciful moment that she’s squeezing Billy’s fingers in the hospital again, she almost hears his voice calling her in her ear. _Miss,_ he says, _breathe._

 

Jake walks past her as they carry Billy’s coffin. He doesn’t look like a child anymore, and she knows they’ll never ever be the children that they were, before. He nods at her though, and it’s a small comfort when he mutters, "Miss," with a bow of his head.

 

Her glance crosses Clive’s as they all exit the church; she sees him trying to walk over to her through the crowd, disappears out of reach before he makes it.

 

.

 

She has a con, that afternoon. It was the last one Billy had booked before everything, the last one on her calendar, set a few days after he knew Sean’s trial was scheduled to end. She knows why he booked it, that con in particular: Robin Laurel is a lovely young girl she’s had the pleasure of defending half a dozen times before, having the somewhat annoying habit of taking possession of people’s purses on busy Tube trains. Her mother, though, Muriel, an overworked, overwhelmed, overspent beautiful woman on the heavier side of the scale, has always hit a soft spot for Martha, with her stunning ability to unfailingly believe in the redeemable character of her daughter. Her daughter who had now gotten arrested on GBH charges for breaking a vase on her boyfriend’s head after he’d hit her one too many times. It’s the kind of case she likes - used to like, at least - the kind of case with a purpose, and Billy must have thought it would keep her here, even after she’d lost Sean’s. She never told him about how she’d actually made it to the airport, that night, and that not even the best of cases could have kept her here.

 

She considers returning it, while gathering the binder from her flat, while on the way to the con, but when she sees Muriel’s friendly face outside the jail, on the way to see her daughter, she can’t bring herself to. Billy did know everything about her life before she did, didn’t he?

 

The doorbell rings in her flat that night while she’s listening to the police tape recording of the 999 call. She doesn’t get up, waits for a second ring that never comes. She finds a bouquet of flowers on her doorstep, later on, a dozen of white roses with a short note in Clive’s handwriting. “Talk to us,” it just says and she wonders who the hell _us_ could be when he tore through chambers with all he had, and kicked Billy and her out of their own family.

 

.

 

The trial is scheduled to start on Monday with a procedural hearing set the Friday before, so she works from home until then, only exiting her flat to pick up Indian deliveries. She hasn’t turned on her mobile since she left chambers that night, and there’s something freeing about it, about knowing that she’s alone in this, and that she can walk out, if she wants to, and simply disappear. Robin’s case is winnable, she knows, and maybe that’s why Billy picked it out, too, but she won’t press charges against her stupid boyfriend who’s profusely apologised since, and that drives her a bit mad. It will only escalate, she knows, and there’ll be other cases, other cases she won’t be able to handle because if there’s one thing that Billy passing away hasn’t changed, it’s the fact that she doesn’t really want to be here doing this job, anymore. Not after Sean, and not without him.

 

(One night, she has one of those horrible nightmares she sometimes gets. There’s a man, with a bloody axe, he’s running after her in the street and her feet are glued to the ground, every step she takes agonisingly slow as he keeps getting closer. For some reason, she can’t even scream until she wakes up, her hand strongly gripping at her mouth. Her eyes open in cold sweat and she works until dawn.)

 

.

 

Still, Friday goes her way, so to speak. She gets the brother’s hostile evidence thrown out on irrelevance grounds, proving that he wasn’t even there in the first place. Muriel hugs her at the end of the day like she always does, her body wrapping around hers like it wraps around her daughter’s. "Thank you," she says. They linger in the corridors making small talk and prepping for court next week when a familiar voice echoes from further down the hall, whispered arguments loud enough for anyone to hear. She excuses herself, discreetly steps closer.

 

"Oh, so she showed up for court?" Harriet’s voice asks, louder than she probably intended.

 

"Look, she just needs —"

 

"She needs what, Clive? We’re prosecuting, she doesn’t want to prosecute, she doesn’t show up at Chambers, doesn’t pick up her phone, you expect me to —"

 

"She needs _time_ ," he insists. "Billy and her —"

 

"Oh, so you’re telling me she slept with him too?"

 

Clive snorts, rolls his eyes, "Of course, that’s not —"

 

Another voice suddenly interrupts him. It’s grave, female, CW’s. "You should probably tune it down…"

 

Her head turns in Martha’s direction and she hears the words too late to walk away before all heads turn to her, too. Clive’s, CW’s and Harriet’s, but also Jake’s and John’s, she sees, like the entire bloody Chambers meeting in the middle of the Magistrates’ Court. She’s never felt that before, she realises, but in the spotlight, now, with all stares fixed on her, she wishes she could disappear. She used to like the attention, even in uni, answering in class when no one else had a word to say, even more so in court, later, with the heels and the lipstick and the glass box she’d built to protect herself.

 

(Her lipstick’s remained shoved out of view in her makeup drawer since Billy died. She supposes it means something, but doesn’t know what.)

 

Truth is: she doesn’t know when the box broke. Doesn’t know if it was Sean, or Billy, or before that. Doesn’t know if it shattered or if there were cracks before, if the first cracks started to appear right away, after that first traffic offence she had to defend, with her brand new wig and case files falling out of her arms. She’ll go to Billy’s grave after all this is over, she tells herself, hand in her resignation in the form of a pink ribbon on his tombstone.

 

"Marth," she hears Clive say, and suddenly she knows what the smart thing, the dignified thing to do is. _Walk out_ , the voice in her head argues, right then, and _you’ve had a good day, don’t let things escalate_. Still, _too late_ , she thinks. "Marth", she hears Clive say again as she gets closer, his voice tense, watching her with apprehension as she walks, stands in front of Harriet, ignoring the stares around her.

 

Before she even speaks, CW takes a quiet step back, like she knows exactly what’s coming, and knows exactly she doesn’t have the means to stop it. Her voice shakes with anger as she speaks; it’s not a good sign.

 

"Is there a problem Harriet?" She asks. Her breathing is quick and strong but she still gives the other woman a second to answer before letting things get out of control. Her mouth opens but no sound comes out, _too slow to think on her feet_. There’s no judge and no jury here, and Martha decides, right then, that she’s going to destroy her. "You couldn’t wait until Billy actually died to take over and now you can’t wait until I’m actually gone to —"

 

Granted, Harriet is actually better at this game than she originally thought, doesn’t recoil to denials, leads the conversation where she wants it to go. "Martha, I just wish you would let us know —"

 

It’s funny. She’d always gently mocked Billy for calling her _miss_ all the time, even after fifteen years, but her own name in that bloody woman’s mouth, it sounds like an insult. "Oh, don’t you dare _Martha_ me!”

 

It’s Clive’s voice, interrupting. "Martha, I think you should calm down —"

 

“ _Calm down?_ ” she speaks, loudly, recalls when she was asked to _move on_. “You come get me from the airport, tell me I’m running away, you tell me to _talk_ , and then ask me to _calm down?_ Which one is it, Clive? What expectation of yours am I not living up to, exactly?”

 

“I just don’t think that lashing out at Harriet is the –”

 

“Oh, come on, just because you’re fucking her doesn’t mean you have to jump to the rescue, she’s strong enough to defend herself –”

 

She hears a few gasps erupt around her. He interrupts with a denial, it makes her roll her eyes. "You know that’s not true!"

 

(It only occurs to her much, much later that he might not have been referring to the shagging.)

 

“In bloody _Chambers_ for Christ’s sake, and you’ve got the gall to deny it!"

 

"Okay, that’s it," Harriet interrupts, dismissing the comment with her hand. "You’re being jealous –"

 

_No_ , Martha thinks. " _Jealous_?" She repeats, slowly, turning to Clive. “How about we talk about your silk party, Clive?”

 

Harriet shoots a half questioning, half accusatory look at Clive, who in turn glares at Martha. "Marth," he warns, looks around, trying to remind her of the people listening around them, like that’s going to make any real difference, at this point.

 

"You don’t want her to know, do you?” She smiles, nodding. “You think you deserve decency, right? Well, maybe you should have thought about that before fucking me over. Kicking me out, kicking _Billy_ out? Because you maybe didn’t kill him, but you sure as hell hammered that nail into that coffin, didn’t you?"

 

"Oh, come on! Chambers was going bankrupt! Is that what you want?"

 

Harriet runs a hand through her hair, steps closer to Clive. “Clive, I don’t think this is –” She starts, placing a hand on his arm. He shakes her away with a wave of his hand.

"Oh no, I think this is exactly the way we should have that conversation, don’t you Martha? Out in the _open_?"

 

"We weren’t going _bankrupt_ ,” she roars back, pointing at him with her finger. “You weren’t the only one looking at the accounts! You staged that, told people we were worse off than we were so that Billy and I didn’t even have a chance in the first —"

 

"I _staged_ it? This is bloody ridiculous! What do you think this is, Marth? Everyone agreed to it. Half of Chambers was for Lady Macbeth here,” he says, loosely pointing at CW who suddenly looks like she’s been shaken out of her latest alcohol-induced coma. “ _Diversifying_ , and the other half was with me! And you know what? Defending’s comfortable for you, the great Martha Costello Q.C, but have you ever cared about what anybody else felt? And I don’t even mean me, I mean _everyone else_ , the little ones with the fraud cases who barely make ends meet, you could have fought for them too!” He rants. His breathing is hard, she stands close to him, she can feel the air coming out of his mouth against her own face. “You want to know something, Martha? The truth is that you’re selfish and arrogant, and you get away with it because you put on that fake working-class front –”

 

"I could have fought for them? You knew bloody well that if you had the vote after Sean’s trial I wouldn’t be able to properly fight –"

 

"Oh God, Martha, Sean _again_? When are you going stop feeling responsible for a bloody psychopath who – _"_

"Who what?” She accuses, pointing at his chest again. He’s trailed off, at a loss of words. “Who _what_ , exactly, Clive? Who’s the jealous one here?"

 

“Jealous? I tried everything I could to help you, Marth!”

 

She shakes her head. He can’t possibly imagine –

 

“Yeah,” she says, “and that was quite the success, wasn’t it? Like you were ever really there for me –”

 

" _There for you?_ ” He shouts, anger truly seeping through for the first time, so loud, it actually makes her stop thinking and look at him for a second. “Who was there when you lost your first case at the Bailey, huh, Marth? Or when a client killed himself in front of you? Or when you singlehandedly decided to take on Jody Farr?” He laughs. “When you bought your flat? Got _silk_? When you lost the b—"

 

She knows what comes next. She knows what comes next because she’s been angry before. And destructive. And he’s angry, and defensive, and he wants to hurt. She knows a lot about that, wanting to hurt, wanting to hurt so badly that you can at least tell yourself that whatever is eating at you and tearing your insides apart is nothing compared to what the other person feels. So, she stops him. Out of self-preservation more than anything else. Her hand is quick, hits the side of his face in a loud clap that makes John and everyone around him bring their hands to their mouth. The moment’s gone before it’s even started; Clive brings his own hand to his cheek when she drops hers. She looks into his eyes and sees anger, resentment, and oddly, fear. There are tears in her eyes like there always are when she gets so angry she forgets to breathe. The whole world is silent around them for a moment, looking in; her voice is cruel and unforgiving when she speaks, like a much familiar punch in the stomach.

 

“You know who was actually there for all of that?” she tells him. “Billy.”

 

He looks to his feet, silently; her voice shakes so hard, tears streaming down her face, she thinks her heart might actually stop beating.

 

“And unlike you, he never told me to get an abortion," she adds, glaring straight into his eyes. It’s her momentum, she knows, the one when she catches the witness lying in cross-examination, when the jury hangs onto her every word and believes it. She feels sick. At the airport, she remembers, she pleaded with him. _Don’t,_ she said. _Don’t make me do this_. And now, she did. _They_ did. Out the corner of her own eyes, she sees the muscles in his jaw tense, doesn’t say anything. _Can’t_ say anything. She knows how to hurt, too, cut scars deep into his flesh and drop a bucket of salt upon them, but then she’s always been the better lawyer, hasn’t she?

 

Her gaze drifts from him to Harriet who’s standing there with everything she’ll never know spelled out on her face but she has the decency not to open her mouth when Martha says, “and you, yeah, I’m bloody out after this case, if that’s what you wanted to know,” and leaves.

 

 

 


	2. ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m rating this chapter M and trigger-warning it for an explicit scene of sexual assault. In case you do not wish to read the scene in question but still want to read the fic (which I hope ^^), it will be signaled by a “..” page break, as opposed to my usual single “.” Please, please, please, if you are (or know someone who is) a survivor of rape or sexual assault, there are plenty of resources available out there to help you, do not hesitate to check them out! 
> 
> Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this chapter nonetheless, and please leave some love (comments :D) at the end!

 

 

 

_‘Cause I have seen the same,_

_I know the shame in your defeat._

_So, I will hold on hope_

_And I won’t let you choke_

_On the noose around your neck._

 

The Cave – Mumford & Sons

 

 

 

 

She rushes home.

 

She dances.

 

It’s the way she deals with things, has taught herself to deal with things. Alone in her dorm room in Manchester with no one left to hold her hand when she failed Torts I in her first year, crying herself to sleep, thinking she’d never make it to morning. She got very drunk that night, remembers her mother over the landline and how she suggested she came home, her sweet voice betraying excitement in her ear.

 

‘You’ll learn to be problem solvers,’ they told her in bar school as she worked endlessly, split the little time she had between solicitors and barristers, and clients, trying to make ends meet. Well, she’s got a Clive problem, now. And a Billy one, a _professional calling_ one, and she’s never been taught to consider her own problems, has she? So, she dances. The music loud in her ears echoing in her flat, letting her head bounce from side to side against the flow; it releases endorphins, she’s learnt, dulls the noise in her head.

 

Except dancing, it doesn’t work, this time around. Her own music leaves her numb, a restless tingling at the tip of her fingers. Billy, and the desert island playlist she’d designed for him, she recalls Joy Division and Clive, and _Sean._ He used to listen to rock, she remembers, _Smells Like Teen Spirit_ blasting out of his window back home, his punk hair and early tattoos; she suspects it might be the reason why her mother never really warmed up to him. Dancing between the four walls of her living room, it feels like being trapped in a cage, books and books of criminal statutes threatening to fall over. She looks around, doesn’t know where to look, where not to look, and how she’s going to drag herself to court on Monday.

 

He made her think about the baby. She didn’t want to think about the baby.

 

.

 

So, she drinks.

 

It’s the other thing she’s taught herself to do (well, maybe the bar did, or living in student halls for two years, she’s not sure), wine tainting her lips redder than makeup ever could, softening the cushions on her couch, lulling her to sleep. With her eyes closed, she can remember the taste of Clive’s mouth over hers in that empty courtroom, months ago; it’s funny, she muses, how his happiness always seems to be tied to her losses.

 

She tries, tries so hard to fall asleep, lying in bed still fully clothed, working her way through a bottle of Merlot. It doesn’t work, though. Minutes pass, half hours, and she’s still staring at the ceiling of her bedroom, almost wishing for inexistent cracks in the paint to trace from the corner of her eyes. _Who are you?_ She mouths at her reflection in the mirror as she gets up, chews on a mouthful of chocolate; she’s angry, is what she is, so angry it speeds her heart up, makes it hard not to choke when she swallows. She could _leave_ , she thinks to herself. Board that plane, that connection to the other side of the world, never look back. She wants to punch him in the face, though, punch herself in the face too, for being so stupid as to ever have trusted anyone but herself. Her mother had warned her, back then. ‘You’re leaving us for nothing more than a bunch of posh Londoners who’ll never take you in,’ she’d said, enraged; her university bags were half-full and scattered around her room on the highest floor of their house, her head bumping into the sloped ceiling every time she got up. _Who are you?_ She asks, again, and slips on jeans and a clean top, letting her blonde curls fall free and frame her face. She needs to get out. Needs to hear music she doesn’t know, voices that don’t hurt. The hot summer air assaults her nostrils when she makes it out of her flat, breathing heavy and fast. She looks for a pub, any pub with a band, and music loud enough that it will change the beat of her heart, and maybe if she dances hard enough, it won’t hurt as bad, now, will it?

 

.

 

She’s ordering her third (fourth?) glass of wine at the pub, her head already buzzing from the bottle she’s had at home, when someone else offers to pay for it. She’s been waiting for that to happen, to tell the truth, so she chooses to consider him, carefully, her glance travelling up and down his form as he towers over her, a contemptuous smirk on her face, vision heavily blurred. He’s tall, that she can tell, with short, brown hair, on the wrong side of his thirties. A pair of sunglasses hangs loosely from the pocket of his shirt. _Good enough_ , she thinks to herself as he smiles confidently and hands a tenner to the bartender. He’s not the kind of person she’d usually go for, objectively, but then her type has sucked, lately, and she guesses she’s always had a bad boy ‘thing’, after all (or so her mother used to insist, anyway). And she does kind of have to admit she was early in the game, so to speak, getting caught snogging older kids behind bushes at school and it’s stupid, really, but she likes the way they feel. Likes the way they smell, the way their hands graze and grope at her skin, and she likes the sex, too, she’s not going to make a secret of it.

 

His friends hover behind him, watching intently as he moves closer to her. “What’s your name?” He asks as he drapes an arm over the counter, leaning in, a hand on her shoulder. His friends laugh; she hears them in the background as she looks at her glass, keeps her palm on top of it. When she drinks, her lips caress the liquid; she takes a sip, feels her stomach protest. She sets the drink down again, briefly considers stopping there.

 

The thing is, she’d thought dancing would get the problems out of her system. She’d thought that drinking would do that, too. Yet, the first name she thinks of, her head spinning in a dark pub that smells like sweat, is still Billy’s. _Billy, Billy, Billy,_ the voice in her head repeats, drunkenly; she shuts her eyes. When she opens them again, her gaze focuses on Brown Hair, hazy on the details of his face.

 

She’s not particularly proud of the solution she considers, but she’s been told _that_ releases endorphins, too. “Does it matter?” she blurts out, shaking her head to the loud beat. Her fingers hook on the belt hoop of his jeans.

 

His hand is on her waist before she knows it. “I suppose not,” he says.

 

She grabs his arm and swiftly navigates them to the toilets, at the other end of the crowded bar. _Look at what you’re doing,_ a voice in her head says, _you should have gotten on that plane._

_“_ Oh, shut up,” she slurs at no one in particular.

 

..

 

Letting the door close behind them, she finds herself pushed against it, his palms strong against her shoulders. Quickly, she feels them running down her sides, his lips catching hers; she tastes the bitterness of lemon and tequila in his mouth, her fingers digging into the flesh of his back. It tastes good, she thinks, feels good, too, _wild_. Truth is, it’s been years since she hasn’t done something like that, something real, and dirty, something that would make someone like bloody Harriet blush, and it makes her want to shove it into Clive’s face. _See,_ she thinks, _I can have fun, too._

 

Drunkenly, she tugs his shirt out of his trousers, accidentally ripping a button open. He doesn’t notice, she thinks, as she exposes more skin for her fingers to grab, bringing him even closer to her. He nudges her legs open with his knee, his thigh pressing into her; she’s in heels tonight – the real four-inch shit, not the short ones she wears in court - and her balance isn’t the greatest so she almost falls off and sinks into his thigh. At the increased pressure on her clit, a loud moan escapes her mouth. His lips find her neck, sucking on her pulse point. “Oh God,” she exhales, a gasp of pleasure cutting her breaths. He flicks a thumb over her nipple, she feels him smirk against her skin.

 

Naturally, her instincts kick in, now, and she takes the lead, feeling him through his jeans as she moves against him. “Tease,” he mutters against her neck when she almost stops, the lightest touch of her fingers remaining. Laughing, she begins unbuttoning his trousers, pulling down his fly, her hand grazing his skin. He breathes out heavily against her chest, his hands cascading down her hips. His fingers start mimicking her own movements, slowly, teasingly working their way into her knickers, slipping between the fabric of her underwear and her skin.

 

“Fuck,” she swears as he sucks at her neck; she’s already so bloody wet it’s almost embarrassing.

 

In a couple of swift motions, she feels his hand on her, strongly caressing the skin under her underwear, humming against her mouth. His fingers travel South, curving into her jeans; she feels her heart racing in anticipation. Her head still spins and she has to hold onto him for balance, but truth be told, she does appreciate that he’s allowing a bit of foreplay into their drunken encounter. Her head against his chest, in slow motion, she feels his fingertips parting her folds, sliding inside her. Her hips buck against his hand, instinctively, moving towards him. Yet, somehow, she feels herself freeze.

 

It’s almost an out of body experience, really, like she’s watching it happen from above. _What are you doing?_ Her own voice echoes in her head, the lights dancing in front of her; she feels like she’s going to faint. Slowly, she closes her eyes, tries to breathe.

 

It must be a couple of seconds before she comes to her senses, feels him still hard against her hand. Things in front of her eyes are spinning a bit less now, but she’s beginning to feel the sickening mixed taste of all the alcohols she’s had making its way to the back up her throat, it makes it hard not to gag as the fingers of his left hand snap next to her right ear. The sound is loud, it makes her jump. “Come on, we haven’t got all night,” he says, his voice hoarse and frustrated, fingers now outside of her, and tugging at her jeans.

 

Her bum is pressed up against the door. She reckons she would have to lift it up a bit for him to pull down her pants, but finds herself unable to move. The fingers of the hand that isn’t tugging at her hip are all over her body, now; she feels his palm pressing against her stomach, her breasts, like he’s trying to elicit some kind of reaction out of her, help her along.

 

“Wait,” she whispers, but he doesn’t hear. The music is loud in their ears, she can still make out the lyrics. _The harvest left no food for you to eat. You cannibal, you meat-eater, you see?_

“Wait,” she says, again, louder this time. Moments later he’s still kissing her neck, groping at her breasts; she’s actively trying not to retch. “Stop!” She insists.

 

For a short bit, her words do seem to have the desired impact, his hands freezing against her hips; he finally relents. She feels him pulling back, a rush of air exiting her lungs, relief flooding her brain. She blinks, twice, until his palms move back onto her shoulders, keeping her in place. “Come on,” he sighs, heavy in her ear, against her frame. He smells of sweat and stale beer. “You’re not going to turn back _now,_ ” he insists.

 

His lips and stubble are raw against her cheek, his fingers snake back down inside her pants. She tries to push him away, close her legs in the process, but nothing seems to help. “No!” she shouts, this time, wishing for someone - anyone - to hear _(clear denial of consent,_ her slow, drunken brain presses), but he’s heavy against her again, his whole body keeping her blocked against the door. She can’t even kick him as he forces a hand onto her mouth, hard, to stop her from screaming again.

 

In one fluid movement, his hands find her forearms again. She understands what’s about to happen as soon as he does it, feels him trying to switch positions, turn her to face the door. As in slow motion, she becomes aware of each one of her heartbeats, fear weighing down her stomach: with her back to him, she knows she won’t be able to do anything. Her instincts kick in, again, and she holds onto his shoulders as strong as she can when he grabs hers, keeping them face-to-face. He wrestles, though, and she’s not strong enough, won’t be able to hold on forever, can already feel her limbs grow weaker in the struggle, unable to keep up with the intensity of his pull. _Don’t let him win,_ she thinks, and oddly, _you led him here, they’ll tear you apart in cross._

 

She’s got one chance, she knows, before he traps her again between himself and the stall. She grabs the flesh of his arms with as much force as she can still muster, gaining a tiny bit of leverage, pushing herself away from the door. He’s caught off guard, tries to resist as he stumbles backwards. She keeps holding him until her fingers go numb, his biceps flexing as he moves and struggles against her. Using her momentum as she pushes him away, leans onto him and slams her knee into his nuts as hard as she can –

 

She hears him scream. Her eyes - wide open as she staggers backwards – see him fall to the floor, his back hitting the toilet seat in a dull and painful crack. A breath she didn’t know she had been holding exits her lungs; she steps back, regaining her footing. For an instant, she wonders if she’s killed him, or if the toilet seat’s hit his spine strongly enough that he’ll end up paralyzed for the rest of his life and feels almost _guilty._ “You, fucking cunt,” though, she hears him say after a while as he writhes in pain (not dead, she thinks), his words barely registering until out of the corner of her eyes, she sees him beginning to move, pushing himself back on his knees (not paralyzed either, she adds). His breathing is heavy, it mirrors hers.

 

She thinks of kicking him again, but the Earth spins around her and she doesn’t think her balance would hold. _Go_ , the voice in her head says and for once she listens, stumbling over her heels on the way out. Outside the bathroom, she finds an exit sign to her right and pushes the door open onto a side street, runs as fast as she possibly can.

..

 

She sits on a bench by the banks of the Thames, her heartbeat loud in her ears, louder than the cars rushing by. It’s Friday night and she watches as crowds of drunken Londoners and tourists walk past, singing in the streets, playfully shoving each other on the sidewalk. Her vision is hazy; it’s hard to focus, her balance uncertain, oscillating from left to right and back again as she watches her feet.

 

They’re bare, she realises, her pale skin exposed to the night breeze. There’s a cut, on the side of her toe, it bleeds. She touches it, her fingers painted red, she wipes them on her collarbone. Hazy, she tries to recall how she got here, and why her whole body shakes like that of a hunted animal. “Taxi!” She shouts in the night, to no one in particular, and the cars don’t stop, keep speeding in front of her eyes. She looks around, an old tramp stopping in front of her. She tries to narrow her eyes, focus, can’t really see his face.

 

“You alright, love?” He asks. She jumps at the sound of his voice and slides on the bench, away from him.

 

“Yeah,” she nods, trying to make her voice sound even, convincing. Eventually, she hears him trudge away.

 

She’s clutching at her handbag in her arms. It’s wet, smells like beer. She fishes out her mobile, out of habit, a dead weight in her hand, she doesn’t remember it ever being this heavy. Hesitantly, she turns it on, jumps again when it bleeps loudly with dozens of missed emails and messages, hundreds of notifications popping before her eyes. Her eyes squint, trying to read some of them, but the letters just blend into one another, they make her feel dizzy.

 

The world spins around her, she’s afloat, notices it gets worse when she closes her eyes, tries not to. She can’t remember how she got here, or why, really, and suddenly the urge to call someone becomes overpowering, like that need she feels to text Clive whenever she gets very, very drunk, which frankly hasn’t happened in a very, very long time. _I’ll call Billy_ , she drunkenly decides, because he’s a good friend, and he cares, and he always says he loves her, and she’s never said it back, and she should, really, because he should know, right now, that she’s his friend too, because love is so, so important, and _nice_ , she thinks.

 

Her hands shake, the letters on the screen are undecipherable but the tips of her fingers somehow manage to enter the word ‘bukly’ into the search bar, and Billy’s contact details pop up. She taps his name, smiles when she hears the ringing on the other end of the line. It’s late, she tells herself, he’s probably not going to pick up, she’ll leave a message, she decides, breathes, she’ll try not to slur too much in her speech. The ringing goes off, once, twice, three times.

“Hello?”

She recognises the voice, but it’s not Billy’s. She moves the phone from her ear to the front of her eyes, extends her arm as far as she can, tries to read the name displayed. Has she misdialled? No, it says _Billy_ , there, on the screen, but then it’s not Billy the phone, so why is it not –

 

She places the phone back against her ear, exhales. “Hello?” The voice says, again, and suddenly the memories come tumbling down on her drunken brain: Billy was in the hospital again, and she was there too, and then –

 

Billy, not Billy, Billy isn’t there anymore, Billy’s –

 

A strangled gasp escapes her mouth. “Martha?” The voice asks, in her ears. She drops the phone by her side.

 

“Martha!” The voice calls into the receiver again; she hears it even through the noise of the cars. Slowly, she picks the phone up, examines its broken screen, puts it back against her ear.

 

“He’s dead, Clive,” she says, her speech slurred, tears suddenly streaming down her face.

 

“Yeah, yeah, he’s dead, Marth, what’s going on? You alright?”

 

Even through her drunkenness, she recognises the worry in Clive’s voice, can imagine him clenching his jaw, his words cautious. Her heart is thundering so loud in her chest, her hands shaking uncontrollably; it’s hard to hold onto her phone, loud, pathetic sobs suddenly leaving her mouth. _Get a grip_ , the voice in her head says but she can’t, feels like someone just plunged their hand into her stomach and is violently pulling her guts out. A memory replays in front of her eyes, Clive gesturing and she hears him screaming at her, earlier, can’t make out what he said, or why, and _how the fuck did she get here?_

 

“No,” she just hears herself say into the phone, finally, tears streaming down her face. “I’m not okay.”

 

“Marth, where are you?” Clive asks. She can hear him moving as he speaks, switching the phone from ear to ear.

 

She looks around. Really does look around for the first time since she sat down. It feels very familiar, somehow, with the river, and the trees, and the cobblestone path. “Thames,” she says, adds. “Middle Temple Lane.”

 

She hears a sigh of relief, holding the phone close to her ear. “Okay, I’m still in Chambers, I’ll be there in a minute, do _not_ move.”

 

The line goes dead. She does as instructed, tries not to move. It’s hard, though, because her head keeps spinning and her body shifts from left to right like the pendulum of a clock. It’s funny how white her feet are against the dark pavement, maybe she should put her shoes back on, then her feet won’t be white anymore, it would be prettier, she thinks, and where are her shoes, anyway?

 

“Jesus, Marth!” She hears a shout from the other side of the street. She looks up and it’s Clive, running towards her, he jaywalks in the middle of the road, cars furiously honking at him. Before she knows it, he’s squatting down next to her, taking off his jacket and draping it over her shoulders. Her lips are quivering, her face twisted in a painful grimace. “Jesus, Marth, you’re bleeding,” he says, his thumb touching her neck, dried blood tainting his finger. “What the hell happened to you?”

 

However drunk he thought she was going to be, she realises he didn’t expect to find her hunched over like this, teary and shaking and barefoot in the middle of the night. She wipes a tear away from her eyes with the back of her hand, stares at the tips of her fingers. “I want to go home,” she just says.

 

“Yeah, let’s get you home.” His voice is soft, familiar, calming. She sees his gaze drift to the road next to them. “Can you walk?”

 

She smiles, weakly, nods. He helps her up to her feet, she leans onto him as they wobble closer to the street. Her legs are shaking, her hands are shaking, he drapes an arm over her shoulder. She shivers a little, a cab pulling over as he hails it, helping her inside.

 

They’re silent throughout the ride. She keeps her eyes focused on the road, her stomach disagreeing with the twists and turns the car seems to take; she briefly covers her mouth with her hand. When they get to her building, he grabs her keys from her handbag before helping her out and leading her past her front door. Stepping into the hallway, she suddenly she feels the taste of wine crowd the back of her throat and she runs down to the bathroom faster than she ever thought possible.

 

.

 

She’s still retching over the toilet a few minutes later, the sickness coming in waves, leaving a gross taste at the back of her throat. There’s the wine and the chocolate, and the shots of tequila she’s had; every gag hurts her empty stomach.

 

She’s pushing on the flush, sitting back on her heels when Clive walks into the room, hands her a glass of water. She takes it, smiling weakly, steals a sip, waits to see if she’s going to puke again but doesn’t. Slowly, she moves and sits back against the wall. The cut on her foot is still itchy but has thankfully dried; she watches as Clive sits down, too, his back resting against the doorjamb. A hand runs through her hair, a sigh escaping her mouth. She doesn’t feel stone-cold sober, really, and the Earth still spins a bit around her, but she feels better, on the whole, and yet so much worse.

 

“God,” she says, massaging her temples. She hears Clive chuckle.

 

“ _Yeah_ ,” he nods. He reaches over to his side, hands her a small plastic package. “For your foot.”

 

They’re Band-Aids, she sees, nods as she pulls one from the box. She looks over at him, lets her stare cross his. “Thank you,” she smiles.

 

He nods, smiling. “It’s okay, you can go back to hating me tomorrow.”

 

There’s no animosity in his voice and she briefly wonders if she should say something, negate his words, tell him that she doesn’t hate him, that it’s more complicated than that. Her brain’s tired, though, and she can’t find the words, so she stays silent, just looks down at her hands flat against her thighs. “Why’d you have Billy’s phone?”

 

“We just asked to keep it for a bit, you know, in case someone who doesn’t know tries to call him instead of Chambers.”

 

“Ah,” is all she finds to respond, nodding. It makes sense, she thinks, and he has the decency not to ask why she called Billy in the first place. God, how drunk must she have been to forget that –

 

“What happened out there, Marth?” Clive asks.

 

Her gaze leaves her hands and searches for his eyes, glancing up. When he looks back, she feels a sad smile tug at her lips in the quiet of the room. She remembers, now. Remembered in the taxicab, when she began to feel safe again, when her hands stopped trembling so damn much, and she recalled how she’d gotten there in the first place. Remembered everything, from the fingers she hooked in the belt hoops of his trousers to his hand in her pants, to her kick in his nuts. She sighs, looks away.

 

“It was kind of my fault in the first place,” she tells him, nervously tapping her fingers against the floor tiles.

 

“I highly doubt that.”

 

The strangest thing is that he wasn’t there, yet his words sound so certain, so trusting, despite all the horrible things she’s said to him today. He’s always been so good at this, being a friend, someone she can lean on when push comes to shove. A part of her wishes she were, too.

 

“What was it, though?” He asks again, after a bit. “That you think was your fault?”

 

She considers it. Considers Brown Hair and his hands on her hips, groping her arse; she exhales. “I don’t want to talk about it, now.”

 

“Okay.”

 

They sit in silence for a few minutes, each of them engrossed in their own thoughts. Her breathing is calmer, now, and her limbs have relaxed; she catches herself yawning loudly a few moments later, hears him laugh from his spot against the doorjamb. “What time is it?” She asks vaguely, suppressing another yawn.

 

He glances at his watch. “Two-thirty,” he says, smiling. “I think we’re past your bed time.”

 

She laughs, lets herself nod.

 

“Come on,” he says, pushing on his hands to haul himself up. “I’ll go get you more water and some Nurofen for tomorrow.”

 

.

 

She’s sitting on her bed when he knocks softly on her door, clean face, clean teeth and clean clothes, having dropped liberal amounts of antiseptic on her wounds. He walks into the room somewhat shyly, carefully lays a glass down on her nightstand, sets a couple of pills next to it. He retreats, a few steps, walking back towards the door; she suddenly feels an almost irresistible need to reach out and touch his arm, keep him close to her. She speaks before she has time to think, stares straight into his eyes.

 

“Can you stay?” She asks.

 

She feels stupid, childish for even asking, and she’s got no right to, considering the screams and blows they’ve inflicted on each other, but she really, really doesn’t want to be alone, tonight. She doesn’t think she blinks before he answers.

 

“Sure,” he says. “I’ll just –” He signals, pointing to the door with his head, pointing to the living room, she knows, to her couch. The thing is, she doesn’t really want him on the couch. She wants him close, close enough that she won’t be alone, that he’ll be able to scare off the monsters under her bed. She wants to feel the weight of his body on the side of her bed, the mattress sinking as he moves, soft, mumbled words escaping his mouth. Clive speaks in his sleep, she’s learnt, in Nottingham, remembers laughing to herself as he told her about the elephant that Billy had just brought into Chambers. That, and having herself slept on her couch for the three days her mum was in London last year, she doesn’t really want to inflict that particular uncomfortable back torture on someone his size.

 

She shakes her head at him. “No,” she breathes. “Stay here. It won’t be the first time we’ve slept together anyway,” she smiles.

 

This time, she doesn’t think she _breathes_ before he answers: “Okay.”

 

She climbs onto her side of the bed as he steps out of his clothes, pretends not to look when he bends over, shirtless, to untie his shoes, the muscles in his stomach flexing with the movement. He slides into bed, turning the bedside lamp off by his side, settling next to her.

 

He lies on his side, looking directly into her eyes in the dark; the moonlight shades a soft light over his face. She smiles weakly, her features close to his, reminds herself of the present moment. The present moment is good, she thinks, safe.

 

She must still look shaken, though, or anxious, because she sees his lips move, his voice whisper. “Hug?” He asks and she puffs out a quiet chuckle, nods, her hair slightly falling into her face. He lifts his arm up under the quilt as she turns around, lies down with her back to his chest, spooning into him. She feels his fingers softly stroking her scalp through her hair, she must fall asleep like that, eventually, because she doesn’t remember anything afterwards.

 

.

 

She awakes to a deathly pounding in her head.

 

It feels like her whole brain is being compressed between two plates of granite, something that extends from the back of her skull to the bones in her jaw; she groans, eyes closed, turns around, attempts to fall back to sleep.

 

She doesn’t know how long it takes her to fully emerge, to muster up the strength to open her eyes. The room is dark, blinds still shut, she can see the sun hitting the back of them if she squints. Clive’s gone from her side but she can hear kitchen noises coming from outside her bedroom door, the memories of the night before slowly coming back to her.

 

She weighs the pros and cons of getting up. Pro: she’ll be able to down the water and the tablets that still sit on her bedside table, and maybe get coffee in the kitchen. Con: she’s not sure her stomach will appreciate the move. Armed with the knowledge that she’ll have to surface eventually, if only to pee, she hoists herself up, carefully flinging her legs to the side of her bed, her palms resting flat by her sides. Her alarm clock reads 9:32.

 

Slowly, she drinks the water, swallows the tablets, tells herself she’ll pull herself up when the clock gets to 35. She makes it out the door a couple of minutes later, the sun violently attacking her face; her eyes squint. She hears Clive’s voice coming from the kitchen, walks down the corridor and into it as he speaks.

 

“Someone’s emerging,” he says, holding out a cup of coffee. She gladly takes it, steals a sip. Her stomach rumbles. “I made breakfast,” he adds.

 

She looks around, looks at him standing in front of the sink. He’s washing a pan, a plate with sunny side up eggs, beans and bacon sitting next to him. She’s tempted to point out that she’s got a dishwasher – anything to reduce the time spent doing household chores to a minimum (she actually has a maid that comes in once a week because she can’t be bothered to do it herself; sometimes, she even sends her shopping for food), - but decides against making the effort to speak. Her head rests between her hands as she sighs, she hears him sitting down in front of her, pushing the plate in her direction. “You should eat something,” he insists.

 

She shakes her head, barely dares to bite on a slice of bread, not knowing if her stomach will be willing to keep anything down. It strangely reminds her of being pregnant. All she gives him is a sigh in lieu of an answer, makes herself sip more coffee.

 

“Believe me, you should –”

 

“I’ve been hungover before, Clive.” The words come out snappier than she intends, but she’s tired, and every time he speaks, the pounding in her head grows stronger at the loudness of his voice. She sighs, shakes her head. “Sorry.” He’s there, doesn’t have to be. She fell asleep in his arms, last night, and that must somehow mean something.

 

“I miss him, too, you know?” Clive volunteers, out of nowhere. His eyes meet hers, for a short moment, then drift to stare at his fingers. “I mean, we didn’t really see eye to eye,” he rambles. “Didn’t really agree on, er, _anything_ really, but I do miss him.” His look falls back on hers. She thinks of Billy, she thinks of last night trying to call him, she thinks she’s already cried too much about this.

 

“When I got silk,” she remembers, smiling. “He made me walk all the way up Middle Temple Lane.” She recalls walking up the cobbled street, Billy at her arm, people watching. She looks up and Clive is smiling, too. “Wig, gown, everything.”

 

She holds his gaze for a moment, doesn’t see any animosity in his eyes, just something bittersweet, nostalgic, maybe. He grabs her fork, picks at a few beans from her plate. She watches him as he chews, briefly wonders how he can do that without wanting to throw up. She’s drunk all her coffee, though, so that’s something.

 

“You always were his favourite,” he says. She shakes her head, out of principle, breaks eye contact, sighs. “Don’t deny it, Marth, it’s true,” he insists. She knows it is, if she’s being completely honest with herself but looking at how things turned out for the both of them, she’s not completely sure that was a good thing. “It’s okay,” he adds, a smile tainting his words. She doesn’t know how he does it, but he catches her glance again. “I’m Harriet’s favourite, so –”

 

She shouldn’t laugh at this, it’s lousy and mildly offensive and not even a real joke but she does, anyway, feels an instinct to touch him, playfully shove him away, like she used to, before. She fights it, shakes her head at him as he laughs with her. A moment passes, she feels herself go silent.

 

“I’m sorry for sleeping with her,” he says, pushing food around her plate.

 

“Two consenting adults. Nothing to be sorry for.”

 

It’s automatic, sounds rehearsed, but as she says it, she finds that she does believe it, somehow. It hurts how much she believes it.

 

“And yet,” he says, catching her eyes. “I am.”

 

He’s silent for a moment; she nods, eventually, not knowing what else to say. The pounding in her brain is slowly but steadily receding under the effects of the painkillers and she’s starting to feel a tad hungry, spreads butter on a bit of toast.

 

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” He smiles, after a while. “Us talking. You and me. Without the audience, and the shouting, playing for the grandstand? Adults.”

 

The words come out of her mouth before she has time to think about what a smarter thing to say would be, something that would make her look less bloody vulnerable. “I didn’t mean to shout at you,” she just says, looking up at him. He holds her gaze as she sighs. “I mean, I did mean to shout at Harriet but then –”

 

“I know. We’ve both said horrible things to each other.”

 

“I’m not going to apologise for any of it.”

 

A soft chuckle escapes his lips, catching her slightly off guard. “I know,” he smirks, chewing on a piece of bread. “Believe me, I’m not going to either. You can definitely be arrogant and self-centred sometimes.”

 

She smiles, almost in spite of herself. “I think your exact wording was selfish and ‘fake working class front’ but I’ll take that as well.”

 

She hears him laugh, catches herself grinning too, takes a couple of bites off her toast. The words, again, come out of her mouth before she really bothers pondering over them.

 

“I don’t hate you,” she tells him. She wasn’t able to get the words out last night, but she can, now: the noise in her head is fainter, it allows her to think for longer than a couple of seconds, through the anger and the grief of the past week. He looks up, startled, opens his mouth but she speaks before he does. “Last night, you said I could go back to hating you tomorrow. I don’t –” she pauses. “I mean, I hate what you did, and I’m so, so angry, and disappointed, and I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you, but I don’t hate you.”

 

It sort of all comes out in a rush; he looks at her for a moment, thinks. “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.”

 

She shrugs, honest. “Yeah, I don’t know.”

 

“I don’t hate you either,” he says.

 

She knew that, already. She knew that, and yet it lifts a weight off her shoulders to hear him say it, makes her smile, makes her feel like, _okay, this is something._ And there are many things she’d like to tell him, about the bar, and about the baby, and about –

 

“Are you trying to make me talk?” She asks him, suddenly realising what he’s done. She helps herself to some beans; they’re not exactly warm, anymore, but her stomach seems to be alright with them now, so.

 

He smiles, too, mischievous. “I don’t know. Is it working?”

 

_Yes, it is,_ she thinks, the voice quiet in her head, calmer. He’s a good lawyer, Clive, learns fast and she’s taught him the trick herself, after all. ‘Tell her something about you’, she remembers advising him: tit for tat, so to speak. ‘It really is that easy.’

She’s silent for a moment, not knowing what to say, or how to say it. She feels caught at her own game, collects her thoughts and: “What happened, Marth?” he finally asks, taking a deep breath.

 

So, she tells him. Tells him about Brown Hair and leading him to the ladies and his hands all over her body and how trapped and vulnerable she felt, tells him about running away. She doesn’t know why, maybe it’s the hangover talking but she doesn’t spare him any details, detached: like it’s a case, someone else’s case, like it didn’t even happen to her. When she stops talking, she looks away; he probably thinks she’s stupid, she guesses, for getting herself in that shit in the first place.

 

“Why’d you call Billy?” He asks, instead.

 

She’s startled at the question, (after everything she’s told him, she didn’t think that would be the first thing to come to mind) but she tries to be honest. “I think I forgot,” she starts. “That he – I was sort of in this – I was in this sort of _haze_. I just wanted see a friendly face – hear a friendly voice – something,” she says.

 

Clive looks down at his hands. She watches him swallow, his gaze drifting back up. He seems to be looking for his words, too, like he did back at the airport, opening and closing his mouth a couple times. She smiles, shakes her head.

 

“If you’ve got something to say, say it, Clive,” she sighs. “To be honest, I know I probably shouldn’t have been drinking –”

 

“Good God, Marth, no,” he cuts her mid-sentence, certain. She stops speaking, looks up at him. There is a strength in his eyes, a degree of confidence, she wishes she still felt that. “Nothing in the world could make this your fault,” he tells her, affirmative, staring into her eyes. She shakes her head, begs to differ. The alcohol, and the dancing, and the leading him on: she could definitely have avoided that.

 

His hands are flat, against the table, he almost reaches out, his fingers hovering inches above hers before he backs away.

 

“It’s _not_ your fault. God, you _know_ this,” he argues instead, locking his eyes with hers. “You’ve been to conferences, talked to victims, written countless articles about it,” he pauses. “Jesus, Marth, that’s sexual assault.”

 

He understands what he’s said as soon as he’s said it. She sees it on his face, his sudden uncertainty at how she’s going to take it, fearing his unexpected burst of honesty has pushed her too far down a road she wasn’t ready to go, yet. The truth is that she’s been thinking about it, thinking about the words from the moment she sat retching on her bathroom floor, to the moment she fell asleep, and after she woke up, has been throwing them around in her head over and over again, as the images from the night replay before her eyes and as she repeatedly tries to shake them off. She’s a lawyer, a barrister, words are her thing. The power of the English language in defining, convincing, defending. She remembers screaming _no_ and thinking that at least it would at least amount to something if –

 

She’s been thinking about the words, about the Sexual Offences Act of 2003, and she thinks that Clive is wrong, actually, it’s a section 2, not a section 3, because he did have his fingers inside her, at some point, and that’s assault by penetration, isn’t it? Except he could always claim he reasonably believed she consented – she led him in there after all – and she shouldn’t have just changed her mind. She looks up at Clive, tries to hide the tears that shine in her eyes. “Yeah, thanks for the crim lecture,” she says, curt.

 

He nods, takes the hit. “I’m sorry, I just meant –” He tries to give her space, leans back in his chair; she grabs his wrist, keeps him close. It gets his attention, too, he stops moving; her grasp loosens.

 

“I know what you meant,” she says. And she does, she’d tell herself the same thing if she were her own client. “But I’m not going to. Because I was drunk, and I was so out of it I don’t think I’d recognise him if I passed him in the street,” she smiles, silently letting him know that it’s okay, that she’s going to be okay, too. “And I was, frankly, by all standards, looking for it.”

 

His mouth opens at that; she cuts him short of yet another argument, raising her hand between them.

 

“We both know how it works, Clive.”

 

He hesitates a bit, his jaw clenched. She can see the wheels turning in his head, the case he could build against her reasoning until he finally sighs, gives her a quiet nod. Clive smiles at her across the table, sadly, takes her hand in his. She fights the instinctive urge she feels to move away, say she’s not a _victim_ , say the worst didn’t happen, that she got out of there lucky, that she doesn’t really need the support. Instead, she stays close to him, her thumb brushing against the back of his hand, biting on her lip to keep her tears at bay.

 

Finally, she sees him sigh, his hold strong against her fingers. “If you ever need to see a friendly face again,” he says, caressing her skin. “You can call me.”

 

She smiles, a soft laugh escaping her mouth, nods.

 

She doesn’t know how long they stay there, in her kitchen, his hand over hers, laughing, exchanging funny memories of Billy, talking about her case the upcoming week. She has another coffee; he makes her more food when her stomach starts to grumble audibly. It’s casual, quiet, a weekend morning. She catches a part of herself wondering if that’s what she said no to, months ago, when he told her he loved her and she refused to love him back. It’s nice, she thinks, and a bit scary.

 

Eventually, Clive looks at his watch and admits he needs to get back to work, go through the accounts for the umpteenth time. She needs to shower, she thinks, and she’s still got a twenty-year-old abused girl to defend on Monday, so she helps him retrieve his things from her bedroom, walks him to the front door. They linger on the threshold a bit, his body inches away from hers.

 

“I was jealous,” she admits in a breath. He looks down at her, his glance confused. “About Harriet,” she says. “I shouldn’t have been, but I was.”

 

He smiles at her, his eyes glancing up for a moment. Tentatively, he reaches out to brush a strand of hair away from her face. She lets him, likes the feeling of his fingers against her skin. “Well, I did catch myself wishing Sean would rot in jail for decades to come, so I guess we’re even on that one.”

 

It shouldn’t make her laugh but it does: she likes the admittance, the honesty. His hand leaves her hair; she steps out to let him open the door. The air is hot, outside. “Call me,” he says, standing outside of her flat. “Or call CW, or anyone else, just don’t isolate yourself or run away, Marth. We all do care, you know?”

 

Hearing him say the words, it warms her up a bit, she feels less lonely, feels it in her stomach. She nods, smiles at him. “Okay,” she says. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, as you probably know, not enough women report incidents of sexual assault for a variety of reasons I will get into. Please, please, please, if you are or know a survivor, don't be a Martha and please consider reporting it, and get the support you need. 
> 
> Love y'all and again, please leave some love (or hate, your choice ^^) in the comments below!


	3. iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all!  
> I just wanted to say a quick thanks for all the reviews and kind comments so far, they really warm my heart ;). I really hope you like this third chapter (which, frankly, was a lot of work), so please let me know if you did :).

iii.

 

 

_Do you remember how this first begun?_

_Teeth were white and our skin was young,_

_Eyes as bright as the Spanish Sun._

Golden Leaves – Passenger

.

 

He ends up coming by every night.

 

Not necessarily for long, and not that she means it to happen but it sort of does. She’s _okay_ , really, but still, she calls him on Saturday night after spending the day working on Robin’s case, going through witness statements and the police investigation, trying to find enough material to support her self-defence argument. It’s nice to stay focused, think about something else than Billy, or him, or foreign hands on her arse for a moment (she’s always been the kind of person to find solace in her work, in that ability to concentrate on something and forget the world around her), but when the sky gets dark outside her window, she feels the need to hear his voice against her ear. He comes over to her place with take-out and files to read and only goes home after midnight; the sound of his laughter and constant banter still echoing in her ears when she goes to bed and finally closes her eyes. It helps.

 

Clive has a case in the RCJ that week, so they mostly talk about work. She pokes holes in his accusation the way he pokes holes in her defence; she’s always liked to see the kind of work that he’s able to put in, the way his brain bites into an issue, detached and rational. He says prosecuting is a different side to her angels and as he teases her about it, she wonders if he was the sort of little boy who dreamed himself up as a copper or a fireman, that kind of hero complex engrained in his brain like her need to constantly prove everyone wrong.

 

(Right and wrong are very versatile elements, she’s learnt, depending on where you stand and where you come from.)

 

.

 

Wednesday – the day before the end of her trial - is the first night Clive’s face doesn’t show up on her doorstep or flash up on her mobile. She suspects he’s screening her calls when she tries to ring him a couple of times, so she grabs a bottle of red from her kitchen countertop and hops into a cab. It only occurs to her when she reaches his doorstep that he could with someone – _Harriet?_ her brain suggests, – drowning his sorrows the same way she tried to, nights ago.

 

He’s alone when he answers the door, though, his tie gone and the top two buttons of his shirt undone, hair sticking out at odd angles. She briefly wonders if he’s been sleeping, but on second thought, it looks more like he’s been drinking. Scotch, she guesses, if the smell on his breath is any indication. She takes one good look at him and knows she was right to come here, would recognise that look on anyone’s face from a million miles away.

 

“Not guilty, huh?” She says.

 

His gaze falls to the floor; he opens the door wider, steps aside. “Yep.”

 

.

 

The thing is, this game they play: everyone hates losing it. More than hate, actually, it’s _fear_ , settling at the bottom of your stomach, holding back your every word. It’s not only the competitors in them, (it’s not a sport, for God’s sake) it’s the fact that it often feels like you’re doing something _right._ Something important, that _matters_.

 

(She used to call him Mr Human Rights, after all, and that’s not something that quits following you around wherever you go, even if you’ve momentarily left your car in the CPS’s car park.)

.

 

She remembers her first real trial: the one with the stakes that were higher than a simple traffic violation or two month’s worth of community service. Her client had been arrested for his part in the importation of drugs in the country, was looking at a ten-year sentence. She couldn’t prevent the overwhelming weight of responsibility from crushing her every move, feeling like she had someone else’s life in her hands, someone’s neck trapped under her fingers, and that she was the one with the power to stop his entire existence from crumbling to pieces. She thinks that’s when she realised she could never prosecute, had to be the one in charge of keeping yet another soul from going down the path to the slaughterhouse.

 

So, the point is: she knows what it’s like to _lose._ So, she helps Clive with the bottle of wine, pours herself a glass after she fills his, and tries not to overthink what it means to either of them.

 

.

 

They sit in silence on his couch, her legs folded under her bare thighs (she’s had to relinquish the stockings to the scorching heat, this morning), his glass already half-drunk on the coffee table. There’s an empty bag of crisps there, too (his dinner, she guesses), along with a stack of neatly opened and folded correspondence, the first one she recognises as a bill from Virgin Media. She doesn’t think she’s opened any non-work-related mail in a good month, junk envelopes piling up day after day on the kitchen table. They cut her electricity off, once, because she just forgot to pay the bill.

 

She turns to face him, her lower back against the armrest, and waits for him to talk, doesn’t rush to wade the words out of his mouth.

 

“Fuck,” he finally says, after a while. He was deep in thought, she knows, going over and over the same shit in his head. She does that, too, after guilty verdicts, replays every word, every question asked and answered in her head, tries to figure out what she could have done differently. Sean’s particular homemade catalogue movie of her mistakes still plays before her every time she closes her eyes. “I know he did it,” Clive adds, shaking his head. His elbows are on his knees, hands against his forehead. “He killed her, Marth, and I couldn’t prove it.”

 

Her mouth twists uncomfortably. She sips on her glass; he downs his. “It’s not only on you,” she says, speech rehearsed, heard around a thousand times. “It’s on the coppers, and the CPS, and, –”

 

He cuts her off, looks away. “Yeah.”

 

He tells her about fear, that night, asks what if his guy murders someone else and he could have been the one to prevent it. She’s never known how to answer these kinds of questions, frankly, they’re the other side of the same coin of the ones she gets at social gatherings and Christmas dinners: ‘how can you defend them?’ She gave her mum her speech once, about the rule of law, and presumption of innocence, and democracy, and, ‘yeah, but why does it have to be you?’ her mother asked, in return.

 

She didn’t have an answer back then, and she still doesn’t, now (and, does it really have to be her, after all?) so, she settles on being there, sitting next to him, and making sure his glass is never empty. Clive’s not going to hear a word of advice she says tonight anyway - she knows, she’s been there, - and that’s just the way they are. It’s what, she thinks, they were always meant to be. She thinks of Sean locked up Cat A waiting for his appeal miles and miles away, thinks of the conversation she needs to have with him, later, and she can already feel her legs go numb under her.

 

.

 

“Even if I wanted to,” he tells her, that night, finishing the last drops of her wine. “I really don’t know what else I could do.”

 

What’s terrifying is that no matter how much she tells herself she’s leaving this all behind, she really, really, tends to agree.

 

.

 

On Thursday afternoon, when her trial ends and the jury retires to discuss its verdict, Muriel hugs her again, standing outside court in the baking hot oven summer seems to have turned the city into. His Honour told them to give up on court dress today so it’s funny how what may well be her last day in court, she spends it in normal clothes.

 

“What are our chances?” Her client’s mother asks after watching her daughter being taken back into custody yet another time, looking like she’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. For the first time in her professional life, Martha doesn’t know what to respond.

 

Usually, she’s got this list of phrases she uses, they come out of her mouth rehearsed, calm, no matter the circumstances. _‘Don’t worry about it now,’_ she says, or _‘what she’s going to need, whatever happens, is your support’._ And when worst comes to worst, when they insist, she ignores the real numbers in her gut, the ones years of experience and verdicts scream at her and says _‘50/50,’_ quick, affirmative, and hopes they won’t ever ask again.

 

Yet, now, standing outside court smoking the last cigarette in her pack, in the back of her head, she can’t even muster up those secret numbers she wouldn’t ever tell. “I think we did good,” she tells Muriel, breathing out. “But, I really don’t want to get your hopes up, okay? We’ll only know when the verdict’s in,” she pauses, reads Muriel’s next question on her face. “Not before Monday, at the earliest.”

 

Muriel nods, her eyes closed, taking a drag off of one of those e-cigarettes; it leaves a funny scent lingering in the air. Martha catches herself glaring, glances away.

 

“I’m trying to quit,” the other woman explains, taking another drag. “She’s going to need me there longer than I thought.”

 

The butt of Martha’s cigarette falls to the floor; she kills it with the sole of her shoe. If anything, she’d say the e-cig smells like those chemical bubble-gum flavoured ice creams would, if they actually had a smell.

 

“Yeah, I tried once,” she admits. “Didn’t stick.”

 

Another puff of smoke clouds the air. “Yeah? How long did you last?”

 

Her nails are bitten raw, Martha observes, tobacco stains still visible at the edge of her fingers; she can’t have stopped longer than a week ago. “Fourteen weeks,” she says, the words rolling off her tongue, honest, quick, her glance directed at the floor. It was the first thing she did after stepping out of the hospital, went through an entire pack in one evening. “Listen,” she speaks again, stepping away from the door, a couple of steps down, changing the subject. She doesn’t think Muriel notices the tension in her shoulders. “I won’t be in London tomorrow, but don’t hesitate to call me if you need to, okay?” She says, trying to sound convincing. Muriel smiles in response, weak and fragile, nods; Martha makes herself reach for her arm, gives her a touch of support. “I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything, alright?”

 

The other woman nods: “thank you,” she says, looking into her eyes. “Whatever happens, really, thank you, for everything _._ ”

 

_Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty_ , Martha repeats like a motto in her head, watching her. If she believed in prayers or crossing her fingers and all that bollocks, hoping for the best, she thinks she really, really would do anything to give that woman her child back. “You’re welcome,” she says, faking a smile.

 

On the phone, that night: “It’ll be fine,” Clive tells her, his mouth full. She can hear him chewing on something, swallowing - his dinner, she presumes. He sounds better than he did yesterday; she thinks that’s the real difference, between them, now: it’s gotten even harder for her to move on. “You’ll get a not guilty and everything will get back on track.”

 

She doubts that anything will ever be _back on track_ as he calls it, shakes her head, automatically, almost forgetting he’s not there with her. She’s painting her nails tonight – another thing she hasn’t done in years – her phone on speaker, set on the coffee table next to her. “Yeah, I wouldn’t count on it,” she says, screwing the top back, paintbrush tucked inside the bottle. “Something broke, Clive,” she speaks, low.

 

She wonders if he’s even heard, wonders also if she’s just talking about her court superpowers, or if her brain could be referring to something else, something between them and judging by the time it takes him to answer, she thinks he gets it, too. “And, you don’t think it can be mended?” He asks, sounding like he’s hanging onto her every word.

 

“No,” she starts, sitting still. Mended is a cast on someone’s arm, staying put to see if the bones will grow again, waiting for time to do its wonders. She doesn’t think time would heal anything there, is pretty sure that if she’d stepped on that plane, last week, no one at the bar would ever have heard from her again. There’s an alternate universe, out there, where she landed in Bali and met another expat there, a handsome lad from up North – not _that_ ‘up North’, she thinks, more like Sweden, or Norway – and in a few years, they’ll get married, act like they’ve found each other after ages of previous lives spent looking for something that was never there. But then, when Clive asked, she decided to stay, so. “Not mended, no. Rebuilt,” she adds. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

 

She hears a sigh of what she identifies as a mix of relief and understanding escaping her phone, a smile in his voice when he says: “To rebuilding, then,” clinking what she suspects is a bottle of beer against another piece of glass in his flat. He drinks, a gulp of unidentified liquid sliding down his throat. “I hope you’re really drinking with me,” he jokes. “And, not just sitting there, pretending, while I get drunk on my own.”

 

A short laugh escapes her mouth, she makes the effort to reach for her wine glass, clinks it against a forgotten empty cup of tea. “To rebuilding,” she smiles, staring at her toenails.

 

It’s not much, really, but she thinks she likes the red. It looks nice.

 

.

 

Clive is a slow driver. Not unbearably slow, not like her mother, but slow enough that he never seems to make a mistake, never forgets to check behind him when he passes someone, never honks at bikes when they take a quick turn right. It’s funny, she took the same roads, yesterday, speeding out of London and onto the motorway like she was the only one there, music blasting out of her speakers ( _here you go, way too fast, don’t slow down, you’re gonna cra-a-a-ash)_. Today, she’s passively sitting in the passenger seat of his car, listening to him talk over a very posh sounding jazz playlist he’s selected, and she can’t bring herself to say anything. She didn’t bicker with him over who was going to drive either, just let him pick her up at the corner of her street. ‘I’ll go get some flowers,’ she said to him, and now they’re carefully laid down on the back seat, Clive’s driving definitely not aggressive enough that they would ever fall.

 

She tries listening to him when he talks, tries to nod and smile when appropriate but she finds it hard to concentrate. It didn’t go great, yesterday.

 

She didn’t expect it to. That’s why she came prepared, repeating phrases in her head as she emptied her belongings in the box they handed her at the x-ray machines, letting the female guard pat her up and down for contraband. She bit her lip when she saw him, sitting at the table, the distraught expression on his face, handcuffs around his wrists before the guard took them off. She wanted to walk away.

 

Yeah, she thinks, shaking her head at the memory. It didn’t go well.

 

.

 

The thing is, there was a time in her life when she didn’t think she’d be working to put criminals back onto the streets eighty per cent of the time. No, in university, she thought she was going to qualify as a solicitor, dreamed herself up working in a big commercial firm, staying up night after night pouring over multimillion contracts. It was her way out of home, out of something she hadn’t even identified, yet. The bar, it wasn’t for her, or so she thought, too uptight with their gowns and their wigs and their brooms shoved up their arses. It was at the end of a moot she’d barely prepared for, something about property deeds, hung-over, drums pounding in her head, her opponent speaking so bloody loud.

 

Their lecturer was a handsome middle-aged man, she remembers, Mr Evershed, a former Q.C. He ran after her at the end of class, catching her before she’d turned the corner. ‘Miss Costello!’ He shouted behind her. She turned around, heavy books in her arms. ‘How much time did you spend on this?’

 

_Shit_ , she remembers thinking. Tell the truth, you’ll look unprepared. Lie, you’ll look stupid. Assuming she’d tanked the moot, she made a quick spur of the moment decision, chose the former. ‘Couple hours, maybe,’ she said, looking anywhere but him.

 

He laughed, she remembers, _what a dick_ , she thought. She had no idea. ‘Yeah?’ He nodded, smiling. ‘And you’re looking to be a solicitor, I assume. Have you got a training contract, yet?’

 

A couple hours later, she was handing him a copy of her CV, with a promise to keep an open mind and not to sign anything with anyone else without advising him first. He didn’t tell her a thing, she remembers, a part of her hoping that maybe he knew someone in a big Club of Nine firm, checked her mail every day, impatiently, waiting for news. It came in the post on a Tuesday, after all, when she opened her mail and found a formal interview request from Shoe Lane in it, spilling her morning coffee all over it. ‘The bar?’ she asked, storming into his office, uninvited. He laughed, sipping on tea. ‘I don’t have the –’

 

Frankly, she didn’t know where to start. Background? Money? Gender? He cut her off before she had time to figure it out. ‘Look, I saw you argue down there. You’re charismatic, you seem to know your worth, and most importantly, I think you had fun. Which is what matters most, by my book.’ He put his cup down, stared right at her. _Through_ her, it felt. ‘You should consider it.’

 

A month later, she was awkwardly standing in the only suit she owned in the heart of London - had nearly bankrupted herself to buy it along with her train ticket - shaking Alan’s hand. When she started, the following September, she met Billy, Clive, and that was that, really. End of story.

 

.

 

She makes Clive park outside the village when they get there, walk down the streets in the shade of rows and rows of brick houses, with pink and purple and orange blossoms pouring out of their windows. The weather has been getting gradually hotter and hotter in the entire country; she feels light drops of sweat gliding along her lower back down to the waist of the old summer skirt she fished out of her wardrobe this morning, the fabric flowing over her legs. It’s beautiful out here, quiet, the rustle of the wind stroking the leaves of trees, her shoes tapping a rhythm against the pavement. No sirens, no ambulances and fire trucks, she would never dare to make noise louder than a whistle.

 

When they finally get there, the walls towering over her like they did in Long Lartin, yesterday, they get lost for a bit, counting alleys and rows with Clive staring at the map in his hands until she spots the flowers out of the corner of her eyes, and the freshly turned ground around it. She walks, slowly, feels him follow behind her. She stops in front of it, stares.

 

_William Charles Lamb,_ she reads.

_1969 – 2014_

The stone looks expensive, granite, with additional words of wisdom from family and friends, bouquets and plastic plants scattered over it. She watches as Clive kneels and adds their own to the mix, yellow and white mums awkwardly fitting between tulips and roses ornaments. They’ll die eventually, she knows, when the living move on and people stop dropping by, close family only making it every couple of years, grass growing over every little thing. She can’t remember the last time she visited her Dad’s grave.

 

‘ _Why?_ ’ Sean shouted at her across the table, yesterday, so loud the guards moved. She had to gesture them to stay put, taking the verbal hits, impassive.

 

_Rule C17_ , she recited, in her head. _Your duty to act in the best interests of your client includes a duty to consider whether the client’s best interests are served by different legal representation, and if so, to advise the client to that effect._

 

She closed her eyes, tried to breathe. _Because I don’t trust myself anymore_ , she thought.

 

Clive doesn’t speak next to her, their upper arms briefly touching as they stand, barely moving. The sun is hot against her shoulders, she can feel the heat burning, her skin prickling where it’s bare, white turning red. She wonders what would have happened if she had told Clive the truth, over the phone, on Thursday, about where she was going, wonders if he would have stopped her, told her _you don’t have to go, Marth, you don’t owe him anything._

‘I should have told you the truth,’ Sean said, desperation glazing over his eyes. He’d always had that thing, that melodramatic thing, the shouting and the tears and the, _they’re going to kill me, Mar,_ that she knows she could never doubt.

‘It’s not that,’ she told him, running a hand through her hair. ‘It’s – I sided with you and I’d side with you again.’

 

He shook his head. ‘No, no, no,’ he said. She can still see it, hear it, even as she stares at Billy’s grave. Can still hear his strangled gasps in her ears, tries to focus on the sound of Clive’s regular breathing next to her, and the birds chirping in the faraway trees. She felt as if he was ripping her heart out when he said: ‘You sided with me? That’s a good thing, Mar, you’re the only who’s ever –’

 

Her skirt has a pocket hidden in the folds, she slipped something in it on her way out this morning, a souvenir of sorts. She can feel the silk fabric dancing over her fingers, long enough to roll around her wrist. She should have told him she wasn’t giving up on him, should have told him she was giving up on the bar, as a whole, maybe he wouldn’t have been as hurt, wouldn’t have shouted that loud when her back turned on him. But she’s not sure she’s giving up, is she, so that would have been a lie. She didn’t want to lie to him.

 

She sighed. ‘You need someone to defend you, not someone who’ll just side with you no matter what you say, I can’t –’

 

‘Martha, _please_.’

 

_Please,_ she hears, closing her eyes. Bargaining, pleading: it’s one of those infamous stages of grief, isn’t it? _William Charles Lamb_ , she reads again, and what would she do to bring him back? Would she cave, defend Sean again? She’s not sure he’d want her to. Maybe, if she’d left and boarded that plane, he wouldn’t even have blamed her for not sticking by him, would have thought she’d made the right decision.

 

Slowly, she fishes the ribbon out of her pocket, the pink shade contrasting with her skin. Clive glances at her from the corner of his eye, she feels his stare on her as she steps forward, drops on one of her knees in front of the stone. It’s odd to think that Billy actually is down there, his body at least, lying still for the rest of eternity. The dozens of post-mortem reports she’s read in her life tell her that soon enough, only his clothes, hair and bones will remain, flesh eaten away by animals and insects, returned to the Earth. She’d rather be burnt, she thinks, a shiver running up her skin, at least that would be the end of it.

 

She reaches over to the corner of the headstone, drapes the ribbon over it. She ties a knot, beautiful, large, even buckles falling right above his last name, like a sash over his shoulder. Her hand flat against the stone, the sun high in her back, she thinks: _I think we’re going to be okay, Billy._

 

When she pulls herself back up and takes a short step to the right, away from tombstone, Clive’s look falls over the ribbon. His mouth hasn’t opened yet since they got here, his jaw clenched and gaze averted. There are so many pink ribbons lost in her home, she smiles, and in Chambers, sliding under pieces of furniture and in coat pockets; it sort of fits here. It’s the resignation she promised herself: moving on.

 

She looks up at Clive and suddenly, she sees the red in his eyes, tears he’s trying to wipe away falling down his cheeks. She’s cried too much about this to cry again, really, and maybe that’s why she’s a bit startled to see him like this, for a minute, remembers the lie he told her, years ago, ‘this baby, it’s just.’ She could see it in his look, back then, the collection of untruths he’d uttered to protect himself; she could have pushed, should have pushed, didn’t. ‘I miss him too, you know,’ he said, days ago, and maybe that’s it, really, maybe she was too self-centred to see it. She’s always been pretty self-centred, to tell the truth.

 

Wordlessly, she crosses the distance between them and finds herself pulling him into an embrace, his head fitting on top of her shoulder. She hugs his body tight, the way Muriel hugs Robin, hugs her, hugs everyone: like both their lives depend on it. She lets him cry the way she cried on his shirt when she lost the baby, and “Goodbye, Billy,” she mutters under her breath, so low she doesn’t even think he can hear. And that’s what he told her, at the hospital, after all, wasn’t it? ‘ _Bye, Miss.’_

 

And that’s what she told Sean, yesterday, too, her words cold, bouncing against the walls. She was weak, she thinks, chose herself over him.

 

‘It is my duty to inform you that your interests will be better served by a different legal representation,’ she articulated, watching his face fall.

 

She was in front of the door, waiting for the guard to open when he said: ‘yeah, you go on and live with that, Mar.’

 

Yeah, she thought, she’s going to _live,_ whatever that means.

 

.

 

She dries his tears and takes him home, that afternoon. They’re silent on the way back; he stares out the window and doesn’t even bother complaining about her driving habits, fields and fields of unidentifiable green and yellow crops passing before the shade of their sunglasses. She makes a conscious effort to drive under 70, never steering too far from the slow lane; when he dozes off, about thirty minutes in, it occurs to her that she could just keep driving, her foot on the accelerator, before he could stop her. They would be in France in the morning, Spain in a couple of days. Not Barcelona, she decides, somewhere _nice_ , deserted, with oranges and lemons hanging from trees, and the water warm over her feet.

 

“Clive,” she says, laying a hand on his shoulder as she turns the engine off, stops the car in the car park under his building. “You’re home.”

 

He stirs, yawns, looks around, takes an extra couple of seconds to comprehend where he is and how he got there in the first place. She knows the feeling. “Sorry,” he speaks, turning to face her. “Kind of passed out on you.”

 

She shrugs, the heat of the air already creeping back into the car. “Looked like you needed it,” she says, taking a gulp from the bottle of water standing between them. It’s lukewarm, now, leaves her thirstier than she was.

 

He smiles, nods, weakly, shifting in his seat. The clock in front of her reads 5:34 pm. “Do you want to come up? I’ll call you a cab,” he adds. “Least I can do.”

 

She had thought up this plan in her head while driving: she’d walk to the closest station and hop on the Tube, try to clear her head a bit. But it’s hot – excruciatingly hot – now, and she really can’t bring herself to make the effort. _William Charles Lamb,_ she still sees written on the tombstone every time she allows her mind to drift.

 

“Yeah, I’d love that,” she says, honestly.

 

.

 

Clive’s apartment hasn’t changed much since the last time she was there on Wednesday, everything still spotlessly clean, apart from a few dirty dishes in the sink. “Sorry,” he says, quickly, stepping past the counter. “Didn’t have time to clean up this morning. What do you want? Tea? Coffee? Anything?”

 

“Tea’s fine, thanks,” she smiles, sliding onto a stool, politely looking away as he reaches to turn the kettle on, grabbing a couple of mugs and bags from the cupboards around. He sets the cups down on the counter, drops a sugar into his; she shakes her head when he offers her one. The blinds are halfway down around the room, leaving his flat somewhat dark, but reasonably cool. She doesn’t want to think about the furnace her apartment probably is, at the moment.

 

His weight awkwardly shifts from left to right as they wait for the water to boil. Clive always cleans up after himself, she knows, even in Chambers, hurrying to get to court, she’s never known him to leave a dirty cup on his desk. She watches him, carefully, gauging his every move, the way his jaw sets in concentration as he pours water into their mugs.

 

“Clive, you alright?” She asks, the words coming out of her mouth before she can really stop herself.

 

He quickly shrugs, turns around to put the kettle back onto its stand. “Of course, what d’you mean?” He wonders, wiping a drop of water from the counter.

 

“You forgot the tea bags,” she says, matter-of-factly, pointing at the mug in front of her.

 

He looks down, looks up at her, curses under his breath. She takes one good look at him. The dark circles under his eyes, his hair in bad need of a haircut, she thinks of his tears earlier, and of Wednesday night, thinks that she’s been pretty stupid, really. “Sorry,” he says. “Distracted.”

 

Mugs emptied, tea bags added (this time), water poured: he passes a drink in her direction, watching her watching him, standing on the other side of the counter. The funny thing is: no matter how mad she gets at him, every time, there’s still that look on his face, it catches her off guard, every time; it makes her heart beat faster, makes her want to smile up at him. It’s a curse, she thinks, but even though she’s not sure they should even be talking right now, she’s said goodbye to too many people, lately, and she’s not sure how she can make it through without him.

 

He’s on cue when he speaks again; she wonders how much he can actually read on her face of what’s going on in her head. “You’re really leaving after this?” He asks, his blue eyes locked on hers. “I mean, the bar, London, everything?”

 

It’s a good question, one that she doesn’t have the answer to, yet. She takes her time answering, trying to find an honest response she’d be happy with, sipping on her tea. It tastes familiar, warming the back of her mouth. “I don’t know,” she pauses, reconsidering. “I wanted to. After Sean, at the airport, but then Billy – I don’t know if I could do it again.”

 

“Where were you going anyway?”

 

He asks that with a smile on his face, it makes her wonder if he knows the answer, actually, if he’d booked a ticket, too, if he would have followed her across the world, had she turned him down again. Not that he’d ever acknowledge it in front of her, of course.

 

“Bali,” she smiles, looks away. It’s a bit embarrassing, actually, admitting it. So bloody predictable: anyone who really wanted to would have found her in days, probably not what Mickey Joy had in mind when he told her to run for her life.

 

Clive does think it’s funny, anyway, the sound of his laughter ringing in her ears. It’s nice. “Been there with an ex-girlfriend,” he smirks. “Largely overrated.”

 

She lets out a short laugh, absentmindedly playing with the hem of her skirt under the bar. There’s a story there, she feels, and she’s kind of curious about it, saves it in the corner of her brain for future use. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re trying to make me stay,” she tells him, a smile hidden behind her mug.

 

“I promise I’m not,” he says, looking up at her. She can see him think, the wheels turning inside his head, waits for him to speak. “Would it be so bad, though? To stay, I mean. The bar’s made for you, Marth.”

 

It takes her a moment to answer, to try to be honest with herself. “I don’t know,” she sighs, a sad smile on her face that doesn’t reach her eyes. Thinks. “I just – I kind of want to see if I can be something else for a little while,” she admits, looking down. “You ever felt that?”

 

He chuckles, shakes his head. “Well, yeah, when I was 19 and fucked off to Bali with a girl I’d met in Oxford,” he says. She nods, laughing, can totally see it and at the same time, can’t. He must have been so different, back then. “Couldn’t stop arguing for two bloody weeks, worst holiday in history,” he adds.

 

She laughs, takes a sip. “Your fault, I’m sure,” she says, her smile reaching her eyes.

 

He sniggers, nods, too. “Evidently.”

 

.

 

When their laughter dies down and she’s downed the last drops of tea from her mug, he grabs both of them and turns around to place the empty cups in the sink. She thinks again of what he said, of what it would mean to leave. She thinks of her plan to go up to Bolton later this week, wonders if it would really help. She doesn’t think he’ll say anything else, thinks of reminding him that he needs to call her a taxi when: “Listen, Marth,” he starts, staring into her eyes. “If you’re going to leave, there’s one thing I wanted to say –”

 

And suddenly, she feels a very acute need in her stomach to do exactly the opposite, gets the very strong urge to not listen, to sing like a child with her fingers stuck in her ears, stop the nice truce they’ve been enjoying from breaking into a million pieces. She thinks she begs him with her eyes.

 

“I know we said we wouldn’t apologise for what we said last Friday but –”

 

“Clive –”

 

“I’m sorry for one thing, alright? I’m sorry for bringing it up.” He tells her, in a breath. She knows what _it_ is, before even hearing the rest. “And I’m sorry for what I said, two years ago. I – I don’t know, I should never have –”

 

“Don’t,” she insists. They’ve never really talked about it, had the conversation, and she’s never really wanted to, to be honest. That night, when she came back from the hospital, she could have called him, but she didn’t. Just chain-smoked and stupidly cried over a foetus she never really wanted in the first place. “I was angry the other day, _I_ should never have said that, I –”

 

Clive shakes his head, right then, running a hand over his face. “For God’s sake, Marth, please let me finish for once in your life,” he snaps, catches her look and she’s caught off guard by the need she sees in his eyes, stops moving, her mouth closing, listening. She hates that she’s hurt him, she thinks, hates that about herself. “What I wanted to say is this: I panicked,” he speaks, pauses at the end of his words. “And, I was an arse. Both times. I’m sorry.”

 

_The real Clive Reader_ , she thinks, hears, in the quiet of his living room. She listens to the cars as they drive past, three floors down, an ambulance rushing. She doesn’t know what to say, has never thought of him apologising like this, directly to her face. Usually, they row, until one of them forgets what they were mad about in the first place. It’s a change, a significant one she doesn’t know how to react to.

 

“I panicked, too, you know?” She tells him. An admittance, more than an acceptance of his apology.

 

It’s not that she doesn’t – accept it, that is, - it’s just that everything has always been complicated, and she’s never simply been able to say words back to him. (She did love Joy Division, though, didn’t she?)

 

He looks surprised, when she speaks again, the words leaving her mouth before she can stop them. “Two years ago,” she breathes. “Had an appointment booked to, er, terminate it, asked Billy to keep me out of court, but Nick got our trial delayed and I –” She stops, tells him the truth. “I didn’t go. That’s when I told you.” She looks at her fingers, palm flat against her thigh, smiles, almost to herself. “Not that you weren’t an arse, I mean, you were, but –”

 

“You weren’t going to tell me?”

 

The pressure his stare bores onto her face forces her to cross his gaze, eventually, but it’s hard, really, to face the hurt flickering glance on his face.

 

She shakes her head, looks away. “Would you have wanted to know?” He opens his mouth to reply automatically, and of course, she knows what he’d say _now,_ but: “not now, Clive. Not in hindsight, knowing what happened. Back then, I mean. You and I, back then?”

 

He averts his gaze when she looks up; it takes him a good fifteen seconds to answer, like he’s replaying everything in his head. “Yeah,” he finally says. “I’d probably have been a dick about it, but I’d have come with you, in the end,” he tells her, his gaze back on hers. “Or brought you chocolate when you got out. Something,” he adds, making her smile, almost against her will. “Who knows, maybe I would even have earned that snog you promised ages ago.”

 

She laughs, this time, the sound of it quickly escaping her mouth. There’s a twinkle in her eyes when she says: “I never promised anything, Clive.”

 

“Not a complete no, then,” he smirks, a flirty hint in his voice. With her free hand, she reaches over to gently slap his shoulder, giggling, pretending to roll her eyes. Clive has always been good, she knows, at wooing her into conversations she didn’t want to have and yet keep making her laugh, dancing on that tightrope, keeping her from walking out on him. They stay silent for a bit, basking in amused bliss, but she can read his body language, isn’t surprised when he speaks again. It’s a whisper, caught in his throat, like he barely dares. He should, she thinks, when she hears the words coming out of his mouth. She thinks about it all the time.

 

“What do you think he would have been like?” He wonders. “Or she, I mean?”

 

She sits up, reaching for a paper towel in front of her, folding and unfolding it to keep her hands busy. “My best guess is blond, blue-eyed, overly argumentative, Clive,” she says, attempting a joke, but even when she sees him smile, the look on his face remains serious, like he knows exactly what she’s doing. She shakes her head, blinks, feels the tears clouding at the back of her eyes, that familiar lump in her throat. “I don’t know, I try not to think about it,” she mutters, looking away.

 

His hand finds its way to hers, the three clear lines of his veins visible on the back of his hand, and she feels a light squeeze, lets herself feel his touch warming her heart. “Yeah,” he nods, catching her glance. “Sorry.”

 

She looks into his eyes and suddenly, somehow, she can’t look anywhere else. She remembers them, two years ago, and how different they were, before either of them took silk, before – anything, really. There was an innocence in the way he looked at her, their banter light and easy, playing with each other’s nerves. She remembers them at twenty-five, too, and the countless hours they spent holed up in their shared office, pouring over dozens of files, her vision becoming blurry on the hundreds of pages of small print. She wonders where that time flew; it feels odd, to think of a life without him. She’s lost Billy, already, and even when she doesn’t know how to forgive him, she also doesn’t know how she’d cope losing him, too.

 

As she turns away, she feels his fingers on hers, his thumb running over her knuckles. She glances up at him, his eyes blue and intense in the semi-darkness of the room. She remembers him, remembers that look, from the airport, what feels like a lifetime ago. His right hand finds the side of her face, reaching over the counter, his skin rough against her cheek. She leans into him more than she needs to.

 

“I –” he says, trails off. In the blink of an eye, he looks away for the shortest of times; when she finds his eyes again, she can see him thinking, settling on his words. They’re not what he was going for at first, she thinks. “I really want to kiss you right now,” he says, instead, and she can’t help but smile, her heart beating fast in her ears.

 

She bites her lip, pretends to hesitate. There’s something really hot, she’s got to admit, about him asking.

 

“Go on, then,” she breathes, hardly above a whisper. “You’ve got my blessing.”

 

A short laugh escapes his mouth before he straightens up, walking around the kitchen island to meet her. She doesn’t move from her stool, merely eyeing him as he moves, only spreading her legs enough for him to stand in front of her. It’s hard not to smile against his lips when he finally reaches down, softly, his mouth barely open, just enough to taste hers. The kiss is short, almost chaste - nothing like their hungry kisses in Nottingham, or back in that empty courtroom – and yet she’s certain that right at this moment, he steals a piece of her heart. It’s intimate, secretive almost, like she’s the only person in the world.

 

He pulls back, ever so slowly, lingers close. “Martha, I –” he starts, and this time she pulls him back to her before he has time to find his words, unspoken confessions dying on his lips. She doesn’t know what he was going to say – doesn’t care – his mouth opening over hers, she slides off the stool and stands on her tiptoes to push him against the counter, her hands in his hair, her hips against his. He tastes like boy and Earl Grey.

 

When she breaks the kiss, reluctantly, she looks into his eyes and it’s sort of a secret but she catches herself wondering what they would have been like, in another alternate universe, where she wouldn’t have miscarried, where he’d have gotten silk the first time around, where she wouldn’t have _swooned_ , wouldn’t have lost Sean, lost him. She breathes in, lets herself relax and close her eyes, her forehead against his chin.

 

“I want to do that again,” she admits sheepishly, looking up at him.

 

He grins, like he’s very, very, happy with himself. “That’s if you don’t go to Bali,” he says.

 

She nods, knows what he wants her to say, deep down, but frankly, she needs more time with herself to figure it out. “I’m not going anywhere,” she promises. “For now.”

 

A smile creeps on his face, his fingers locking around hers. He reaches down, drops a quick peck on her lips. “I can live with that,” he tells her.

 

She doesn’t know how long they stay there, in his kitchen this time, her body pressing against his, just staring into each other’s eyes. It turns into a game, eventually, of who will be the first to look away. He pulls a face, in the end, it makes her laugh and she curses under her breath, conceding defeat. Reluctantly, she pulls away from him, untangling their fingers.

 

“Wine?” She asks, grinning up at him.

 

He lets out a soft laugh; it comes out in multiple breaths like when she’s puffing on a cigarette. “Open bottle of white in the fridge, red’s in there,” he says, pointing at one of the cupboards. “Your choice.”

 

She nods, stepping away from him. She busies herself, setting down a couple of glasses down on the counter, opening the fridge. Considering the heat, she goes for the white.

 

She takes his old spot standing on the other side of the island as he sits on her stool, clinking her glass against his. After they’ve both taken a sip, she adds, smiling:

 

“See? I _am_ drinking with you.”

 

.

 

Nothing happens, that night.

 

He calls her a cab around 1 a.m. and insists on paying for it (‘it was my fault you had to come out here, after all,’), squeezes her hand through the open window before it drives off and she thinks about how funny it sounds, that phrase. ‘We kissed,’ her friends would say, in college, in uni, ‘but that’s it, nothing happened.’ It’s funny, really, because nothing happened and yet as she closes her eyes, sitting against the leather, vaguely listening to the driver speak Hindi on the phone, she can still feel his lips against hers, his fingers over her palm and she’s sixteen, again, playing a couple of kisses over and over in her head, and what she said, and what he said, and that smile that has yet to leave her face.

 

She’s had her fair share of the wine, but she doesn’t think that’s what lulls her to sleep.

 

She feels safe, that night, in her bed, thinking about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] I took some liberties with English civ pro as I needed Martha to have the Friday and the weekend free before the verdict. I actually don’t know if it would ever take that long for a jury to come back (or if this case would even be heard by a jury, frankly), but I was too lazy to do research, so I hope you’ll forgive me.  
> [2] The song that Martha is listening to in the car on the way to visit Sean is ‘Crash’ by The Primitives.  
> [3] For anyone wondering, the Club of Nine is what today’s Magic Circle used to be. If you’re interested (but really, why would you be?) they used to have official meetings where they would exchange information about their clients and stuff, it’s sort of fascinating (and obviously illegal, now).  
> Anyway, I really hope you liked this, and happy Bastille Day tomorrow :).


	4. iv

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is rated M. Mostly because I couldn't bear having the only sex scene in this fic be non-consensual. Also, because I'll admit to having enjoyed writing this :).
> 
> Also, thanks a million again to everyone who has left reviews and kudos on the previous chapters! This fic has gone so far beyond what I had in mind at first, and like I said before, it is and will probably remain a lot of work in the upcoming months (I'm thinking two to three more chapters, please bear with me ^^), so you cannot imagine how much happiness and pride it brings me to read your kind words :). Thank you all so, so much! (See the end for more notes)

_We sit at a table, face to face,_

_Queen takes pawn, check on, check mate._

_I feel your foot brush against my leg,_

_I'm not that easily led._

 

Get Your Way – Jamie Cullum

 

 

She’s sitting at the bench, her back straight against the wood, wig and gown on, _like Superman coming out of the phone box._ She hears talking, and talking, and talking, and remembers the teachers in school, the way they spoke, and spoke, and spoke before handing out the grades. Just like back then, she waits.

 

“Not guilty.”

 

She closes her eyes, bites her bottom lip to refrain a smile from spreading across her face. Outside, Muriel hugs her again with sunshine in her eyes. In the robbing room, she smokes a cigarette at the edge of the window, overlooking cars rushing five floors down; it’s a win, a good win, the sense of justice, of a job done at the tip of her fingers. She smiles, so large some bloke walking by on the street below calls her crazy.

 

.

 

For someone on the white ribbons, Clive is inordinately happy about the news. “I told you,” he says, but in a good way, a friendly way; she hears his words and beams into the telephone. She’s walking down the streets of central London with her link to him pressed against her ear. It’s the first time in years that she’s not rushing to be anywhere, just watching people pushing past, her handbag tight against her shoulder. She thinks she might go get a snack at Pret in a bit, maybe try to fix her phone screen, look at shops on the way.

 

She skirts around an agglutinated mass of tourists, with audio guides in their ears and a man in a bright shirt speaking into a microphone, leading the group with a yellow umbrella. The air is damp, the sky grey, people tired and irritated with the heat of the past few days, she hopes for a summer storm.

 

“So, what are you up to, tonight?” Clive asks, in her ear.

 

“Sleeping?” She laughs, hears him chuckle at the other end. “Haven’t had much of that in –” she thinks, counts the weeks since the beginning of Sean’s trial, since – “Well, in fifteen years, really, so -”

 

He speaks into the phone, the sound on her end getting interrupted by an ambulance rushing by, blaring its siren straight into her ears. She apologises, once it’s gone, smiles. “Say that again?”

 

“I was saying,” he starts as she almost bumps into a couple stopping abruptly in front of her to look at a map. She steps aside, rolls her eyes. “What if I offered to take you out tonight?”

 

She’s amused, smiling teasingly into the receiver, can’t help but think of the feeling of his lips against hers, the other night. “What, like on a date?” She jokes, laughing at the idea, wondering what the both of them would look like in the awkwardness of a pompous restaurant, her standing and waiting for him to pull a chair for her to sit on.

 

She stops laughing, though, when she hears some sort of short silence on the other end, raises the volume of her speakers. “Yes,” he finally says. “Like on a date.”

 

She stops abruptly in her tracks, reflexively gripping at the phone; some idiot pushes past her, cursing. She thinks his voice kind of sounds like a dare, but she doesn’t know whether he’s daring her to say yes, or no.

 

“A friend from Oxford is playing with his band,” he adds, probably trying to cover up the silence he hears on her side of the conversation. She doesn’t realise it, but she’s holding her breath. “There’ll be booze… And dancing…”

 

She laughs at that, releasing that breath, biting her lip so as not to agree right away. She pretends to hesitate some more, hums; he smiles. “Okay, fine,” she finally sighs, faking annoyance. She’s smiling, too, though. “I’ll go out on a date with you.”

 

.

 

She doesn’t admit it when he asks, later on, but she does buy a dress for the occasion. Nothing fancy, just a nice dress, a light shade of blue with white lining over the seams. It’s flattering, close to her waist; when he picks her up at seven – sharp – and she opens her front door to meet him, he stands awkwardly with his mouth slightly open for a second; she catches him tracing the curves of her body, his look lingering on her cleavage a bit too long to be appropriate.

 

“I don’t do sex on a first date,” she jokes, lies, pushing past him to close the door.

 

She hears him laughing from behind her, his body close to hers. “That’s very unfortunate,” he smiles, shaking his head.

 

.

 

Surprisingly, the band is decent.

 

Sure, they’re no Joy Division, by any standard, but she has fun dancing and drinking with him, making silly faces and letting her hips rock to the music. They walk out of the bar at around half past ten, after the band breaks and before another one comes in. She has yet to finish her Corona, a half-slice of lemon floating halfway down the bottle. They stand on the pavement, the air even hotter than it was inside, just beaming at each other; when she looks at him, he looks like he did when she first met him.

 

“You guys look like you had fun,” someone says coming out the door from behind Clive, patting him on the shoulder. Dark hair falling across his face, some sort of tribal-y shaped tattoo under the hem of the short sleeve of his t-shirt, she recognizes him as the guitarist. When Clive turns around to face him, they both go in for a full hug, almost shaking each other up like you shake a tree for fruits to fall out, like men, for some reason, always do. A bit of healthy praise ensues (“Yeah, it was great! You really did well back there!”), followed by friendly catching up; she politely takes a step back, listening. _Yeah, you still live out here, don’t you?_ and _, me, no, Marjorie couldn’t stand London with the kids anymore, had to move up to Essex, much quieter_.

 

It’s funny she’d never really considered Clive ever having friends, or having a life outside of Chambers. It’s nice, to see this side of him. The guitarist lights himself a cigarette and she watches the both of them as the smoke fills the air, debates putting her beer down and getting her own pack and lighter out but decides against it, steals a sip from her drink instead.

 

“So, Clive,” his friend says, finally, glancing at her. “You going to introduce me?”

 

She smiles against the rim of the bottle, raises an eyebrow at Clive. He grins back at her. “Yeah, right,” he says, stepping aside. “Pete, this is Martha,” he breathes. “Martha Costello, she’s a, –” She’s not sure _Pete_ hears the millisecond break that Clive takes to think of a correct qualifier, but she definitely does. “She’s a _friend_. Marth, this is Pete Barlow.”

 

She extends her palm to shake his but he pulls it gently towards him instead, his fingers brushing over hers, taking it to his mouth. He places a kiss on the back of her hand and bows, a little, before letting go. She eyes Clive by her side, notices him step a bit closer to her, smiles to herself, shaking her head. _Men,_ she thinks.

 

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Martha Costello,” Pete says, smiling, insisting on the last syllable of her name. He nods at Clive, jokes. “You know, if you keep bringing pretty ladies to my gigs like that, I might even let you in for free!”

 

She laughs, loud and genuine, and the three of them end up chatting amicably as they finish their beers – Pete works for HSBC, she learns, his wife sells clothes for cats, dogs and ferrets (it sounds very specific, she hardly refrains from asking who the fuck buys such things).

 

When Pete heads back inside to pack up with his band, Clive offers to get proper dinner, and she can’t help but chuckle, the mental image she’d had earlier of the both of them awkwardly looking at each other in some high-end Italian restaurant popping back into her brain. She declines, opts for fish and chips instead, her fingers ending up smelling like vinegar when she pours about half a bottle’s worth onto her plate to keep him from stealing more of her food, laughing loudly as their feet brush under the cheap Formica table. It feels more like _them_ , she thinks.

 

They’re walking down an empty street feeling like they’ve eaten enough for a lifetime when the word _friend_ pops back into her mind when she thinks of him. If she were brave, she thinks she’d ask him whether it was just a handy shortcut for him to describe what they are, or if he really thinks it, can still look at her the way he used to a few months ago. There’s a world, though, between being people who tell each other everything and being people who ask each other everything, so she doesn’t – ask, that is – chooses a safer a topic, instead. She doesn’t know, really, if she’s not brave enough to ask, or brave enough to know.

 

“So what did Pete mean, exactly,” she smiles, teasing. “By you _keeping_ bringing pretty ladies to his gigs?”

 

Clive looks a bit uncomfortable, suddenly, and really, it’s kind of hard not to laugh at him. She loosely wonders if this is one of his regular first date hang outs, wonders if he has that kind of place in his address book. Not that she’d mind, it’s just a bit funny.

 

When he doesn’t answer right away, she grabs his hand, makes sure he stops so that she can step in front of him, look straight into his eyes. They’re in a small, deserted spot at the end of a street that goes downhill, facing each other, no one around.

 

“You’re going to tell me what happened?” She asks, eyebrow raised.

 

“Nothing.”

 

She puffs out a laugh, step closer to him. “Yeah, sure,” she says, a quizzical look on her face.

 

He sighs, looks away. “Okay, fine,” he says, almost smiling, against his will, it seems. “Once, alright? We were in Oxford together. There was this girl I brought to his concert, –”

 

“Let me guess,” Martha cuts him off, shifting. She’s standing about fifteen centimetres from him now, can feel his breath against her face. “She chose his mad guitar skills over your admin law books?”

 

Clive laughs a bit, smiling; she sees it in his eyes. “Something like that, yeah.”

 

Instinctively it seems, his hands find her hips, keeping her close. Her lips are inches away from his mouth; she considers simply crossing the distance between them, letting herself kiss him gently, her body pushing against his. She’s keeping that for later, though, and even if it sort of feels strange saying that when they almost had a _child_ together, a little chase never hurt nobody. So, instead, she starts humming, moving her hips to the rhythm of her voice, against his. They covered _She’s Lost Control_ at the gig, so it’s stuck in her head now and, “ta-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, ta-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da,” she goes, her eyes locked on his. She does it long enough - just humming, dancing, close - that she feels her stomach tense a bit, something akin to _want_ bubbling under her skin, doesn’t think she’ll be able to hold on much longer before touching her lips to his. She thinks she feels him tense in his jeans, too, bites her lip. She’s not going to lie: it’s a bit flattering.

 

Finally, she stops humming, leans in, she turns her mouth to the side of his neck, speaks into his ear. “Come on,” she says, trying to sound way sexier than she actually is. “Let’s get another drink.”

 

When she moves away and leads the way down to the corner of the street, she thinks she hears him curse under his breath, collecting himself before he finally catches up with her.

 

.

 

They stop at another bar a couple of streets down, an unlikely mix between an Irish pub (wood everywhere, a mile’s worth of beers on tap) and a trendy hipster hub (soft acoustic music on the speakers, light bulbs flaunting golden filaments). They settle in a booth, his thigh touching hers; he gets another beer, she orders a glass of red wine.

 

She watches his fingers tap the pin to his debit card, somewhat mesmerized. “You know,” he starts, putting his card back into his wallet. “You’re supposed to at least pretend you’re willing to pay your share.”

 

She smiles at him, cocks her head, her chin resting against her palm. “On a first date?”

 

“Yeah,” he nods. He’s looking at her again, feels like he hasn’t looked anywhere but her all night. “That’s what girls do now, it’s called feminism.”

 

She puffs out a laugh, steals a sip of her wine. She reapplied lipstick in the bathroom, it leaves a kiss on the glass as she places it back down on the table.

 

(He took note of that, earlier, on the way to the gig, glancing at her. ‘The red’s back?’ He asked, smiling.

 

‘The red’s back,’ she said, nodding.)

 

“And you men are all too happy to oblige, I’m sure,” she teases, pulling herself back on track, toying with her drink, the stem rolling between her middle and ring fingers. He chuckles, nods, drinking his beer. “Well, I won’t be that much of a great date, then,” she says. “Cause, I don’t have a job anymore, so I’ll let you pay for everything, let me tell you.”

 

He laughs. “I guess I’ll cope, then.”

 

She’s grateful that he doesn’t ask her what the hell she’s doing with her life, now. That he just lets it go, assumes she’ll figure it out, eventually, because she knows it’s the one thing people are probably talking about behind her back, the one question that systematically gets whispered at the mention of her name. If not the bar, then what? As if she held the keys to something they didn’t.

 

She didn’t tell her mum she’d quit, on the phone, earlier, couldn’t bring herself to voice it out. ‘I’m just taking a holiday,’ she told her, pulling things out of her wardrobe, trying to find comfortable shoes that matched the dress.

 

‘You never take time off, I’m just a bit surprised -’

 

She rolled her eyes, decided on the shorter black heels. (As if, really, her mum had ever paid any attention to her career, anyway. She didn’t even show up when she got sworn in.) ‘Look, Mum, do you want me to come over tomorrow or not?’

 

‘Of course, darling, that’s not what I’m –’

 

Looking at Clive, now, it’s odd that she doesn’t feel like she has to explain herself, or justify her life decisions along the way. He was there for Sean, she guesses, and Jody Farr, and Brendon Kay, and it’s odd to think that he feels like the only one who would really _understand_.

 

He seems lost in thought, too, when she looks over at him, she decides to make an effort, after all, to start off another conversation. “So, tell me, since you’re so experienced,” she asks him, taking another couple of swigs of wine. “What do people talk about on first dates?”

 

He turns a bit to face her, pretends to hum, lost in thought. “Let me see... The weather.” She smiles. “Is a big one. Also, upbringing – where do you come from? Parents, pets, and the like. What do you do for a living? Weird hobbies? Women lying when they’re asked about their age… That kind of thing.”

 

She smiles, drinks, tipsily stumbles over her words a bit. “Okay, so let me try this. Nice to meet you,” she starts, loosely shaking his hand under the table. His fingers are warm against hers. “My name’s Martha. I’m, er, thirty-two years old –”

 

He bursts out laughing, lets go of her hand to grab his drink, shakes his head in disbelief. “Don’t you usually say thirty-five?”

 

Her eyebrows rise, it’s hard to keep a straight face. “Well, of course, but that’s when I’m not _supposed_ to be lying,” she admits, eyes set on his.

 

He chuckles, gestures with his hand. “Okay, then, go on.”

 

She takes a deep breath like she’s about to reveal some sort of big secret about herself that she’s never told him before. She doesn’t know what, exactly, but there’s something kind of hot about the whole role-playing thing. “Okay, so. Martha. Thirty-two. From Bolton, up North.” He smirks, she playfully hits his shoulder with her free hand. “I had a cat, growing up, but it died.”

 

“So, see, that’s a red flag. What happened? Did she kill it?” he asks, pretending to tick a box on an imaginary paper. “Is she a psychopath?”

 

“Oh, shut up,” she scolds. “Anyway. I’m currently unemployed, used to be a barrister.”

 

“Oh, so you’re a lawyer, then?” He asks, leaning closer, hands on the table. “So, I’ve got this problem with my landlord –” he jokes and she bursts out laughing again, can’t even bring herself to chastise him for interrupting her.

 

Anyone who’s ever done law has been there, she knows. Guests at dinner parties, estranged family members at Christmas gatherings harassing you for legal advice, refusing to understand that no one knows all the law by heart. Also, that she doesn’t work for free. ‘I don’t practice in that area,’ she’ll say and: ‘But you must have at least an idea,’ they’ll counter, as if an idea from her on a bit of law she’s never looked at since her second year of university is somehow more valid than that of the guy who owns the pub down the street.

 

“I mostly do criminal law,” she tells Clive, her date, as he looks up at her.

 

“Ew, _criminals,_ ” he says. Again, the ticking motion with his hand. “Definitely a psychopath, then.”

 

She pretends to roll her eyes at him, playfully continues. Maybe it’s the wine that’s getting to her head, but this is fun, she thinks. “Er, what else? Oh yeah, the weather. Hot. Scorching hot, actually, when is the bloody rain going to come, d’you reckon?” He laughs, shaking his head. “Parents? Father deceased. Mum works the early Tuesday to Saturday shift at the local Tesco. And hobbies? What are hobbies? When does one find time for them?”

 

They’re both grinning at each other like mad idiots by the time the last call rolls around and because it’s a Monday night, they’re almost the last patrons in the bar. Clive heads for the toilet as she absentmindedly decides to step out for a smoke. As soon as she opens the door to the exit, though, she knows she’s at least got the answer to _one_ of the questions that have been on everybody’s minds all day.

 

Suddenly, it’s an assault on her senses. She hears it before she sees it, feels it on her arm as soon as ventures too far away from the slim protection afforded by the ledge of the building. Mostly, she smells it, though.

 

She’s always associated the scent of rainstorms with childhood. She thinks a lot of people do, to tell the truth, the smell of hot, burnt ground being hit by heavy drops feeling kind of like the smell of freshly cut grass, triggering different bittersweet memories in everyone. Hers? They centre on summer holidays spent in the backyard of her grandparents’, picking blackberries from the bushes, her fingers wet and sticky, washed away by the rain. She stays motionless, standing in awe for a good minute before lighting her cigarette, protecting it with her palm, her eyes shut, listening to the drumming of the rain on the pavement.

 

Eventually, she feels the door next to her open again, shoves her arm in front of Clive to prevent him from stepping into the showers. There’s a moment of confusion where he looks at her and at the ground before him and still tries to move before it sinks in. Slowly, carefully, he steps out of the pub and joins her below the ledge of the roof. They’re standing very close, now, the entire left side of her body touching his. “Holy shit,” he swears, staring at the pouring rain.

 

The pavement is so dry it doesn’t really absorb any of the water that falls, puddles and puddles scattering over the roads and side streets. She watches as cars rush by on the main road a few meters to her left, splashing waves of rain on the pavement. “Yeah,” she just says, taking another drag from her cigarette, puffing out smoke. Clive coughs.

 

She rolls her eyes, gives a slight shove to his shoulder. “Oh, come on,” he says, his tone indignant. “I’m not going to pretend I like it,” he groans, turning his head towards hers. She breathes out again.

 

“No, but you also don’t have to pretend to cough every time I light one up.”

 

They’re reaching the very end of their evening, she realises, and suddenly she can’t look at his face anymore, quickly turning around, focusing on the rain instead. Her heart is hammering in her chest, setting a different beat from that of the drops that hit the floor; she feels like every of her nerve endings that touch his side are causing a shiver to run down her spine. She’s very careful not to train her eyes on him, trying to regulate her breathing.

 

“I’m not _pretending_ to cough, I cough,” he insists. She hears a smile in his voice, butterflies dancing in her stomach. “Your _smoking_ makes me cough. I mean, I even had asthma, as a kid, so –”

 

“Clive,” she says, looking up.

 

She turns her body on a one-eighty to face him, sees his mouth remaining slightly open, the wheels turning inside of his head. She’s slightly outside of the safety net the ledge of the building has provided them so far, feels heavy raindrops hitting her back and presses against him.

 

“Shut up,” she breathes, her cigarette falling to the floor.

 

She kisses him.

 

It’s hard to put into words, really, because as far as kisses go: it’s probably the best one she’s ever had. And she’s not saying that because it’s _him,_ or because it’s _them_ , right here and now, but because she even doesn’t think she’s ever felt that way with _him_ before, or anyone else, for that matter. Not in Nottingham, not in that empty courtroom at the Bailey, just –

 

His hands tangle in her hair, pulling her even closer to him, her mouth opening under his. She steps between his legs, her own hands roaming everywhere they can reach, over the back of his head and his chest, and his hips, she can feel his heart beat even faster than hers under her fingertips. She feels like they’re the only people in the entire universe, like this is all she ever wants to do for the rest of her life.

 

The door to the pub opens from the inside, on their right, she jumps at the noise and abruptly pulls away from Clive’s mouth. Unaware, one of the waiters she vaguely recognises walks out of the place, barely glancing at the both of them, locking the doors behind him. “Crazy weather, eh?” He says as he steps away into the rain, not waiting for a response.

 

A bit dazed by the kiss and by the speed at which a single, uncaring person was able to bring them back to reality, she takes a few half seconds to recover, just standing there, unmoving, staring into Clive’s eyes. When she does recover, though, and looks at him (really looks at him), he seems to have been struck by lightning, too, a big, stupid grin on his face. Not really knowing what to say, she opts for an apology, filling the silence between them. “Sorry, I just –”

 

He grabs her arm, tight, his fingers wrapping around her wrist. “God, don’t you ever apologise for doing _that_ ,” he says, his thumb tracing circles over her skin.

 

She laughs, loud and clear in the night, leans into him. “Yeah,” she teases, her mouth inches away from his. “You think?”

 

This time it’s his turn to close the gap between them again, his hands resting on her hips, tugging her towards him. When he pulls away, eventually, her heart seems to have settled a bit, her breathing a tad more even. She doesn’t really want to move, though, doesn’t want to leave him.

 

“So,” she starts, staring straight into his eyes. She can see there’s bit of worry, in there: he’s not sure what she’s going to say. She kind of likes that, likes that he doesn’t know _everything_ about her either. “You know that thing I said when you picked me up earlier?”

 

He chuckles softly, nodding, his right hand resting comfortably on her hip.

 

“Well, I could be persuaded to, er, disregard it,” she adds, biting her lip.

 

She hears him laugh, tease her with his hand on her skin. It’s strange how everything that happened between them, a couple weeks back, and their fight, and the bloody, messy aftermath on her part, it almost seems like a very distant, foggy memory. “Yeah?” he smiles. “Persuaded how?”

 

Slowly, she leans in, whispers in his ear. “Lots of hard work and dedication, I’d say.”

 

He laughs again, lightly this time, but she does feel him tense a bit again, like earlier in the street, through his jeans and the fabric of her dress. They stay like this for a moment, silent, and she’s looking straight into his eyes, waiting. From the intensity of his stare when he eyes her back, she briefly wonders he’s not going to force the door of the bar open again and take her there instead, on the booth they just sat on. She shakes her head at the image, finally feels his hand grabbing hers. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s run and try to get a cab, shall we?”

 

.

 

By the time they get past her front door, they are drenched to the bone. She already suspected that finding a cab in this weather was going to be difficult, but at one a.m. on a Tuesday morning, it turned out to be nearly impossible. By the time they found one, after spending a good twenty minutes running from doorstep to doorstep, laughing, trying to shield themselves from the rain, there wasn’t really any point left in running, anymore.

 

She doesn’t think it matters, though. Her messy, wet, blond curls cascade down her face – all that work she’d put into straightening her hair gone to waste – he gently pushes her against the wall of her hallway, his damp shirt clinging to his skin. She doesn’t care. Doesn’t care about the pools of water they’re leaving behind them like guilty footsteps on the floor, doesn’t care to turn on the light, or to make him take his wet shoes off before they ruin her carpet. She never wants to take her hands off him, never wants her mouth to leave his. They’ve done this before – of course, - but the strangest thing is: she can’t keep her eyes off him.

 

She’s quick undoing the buttons of his shirt, untucking it from his trousers, her hands streaming up and down his chest. _Okay,_ she considers, feeling his skin under her palms, _so this:_

 

Sure, she’s not shallow, and typical, and weak, and doesn’t think a man must automatically be strong and broad-shouldered, and square-jawed to be attractive. She’s had enough people in her life before him to know that. So, sure, she’s above that. But sure, also, it just so happens that Clive _is_ strong and broad-shouldered, and square-jawed, and as she runs her fingers over his stomach and feels his abs contract as he bends down to kiss her, she’s got to admit that sure, _okay_ , it sort of is somewhat of a turn on. “Bloody hell,” he swears when his shirt finally hits the floor after three unsuccessful attempts at pulling it off him, the water sticking to his every pore. Frankly, she can’t suppress a laugh from exiting her mouth.

 

She thanks the Gods up there that the dress she’s picked is flowy enough that it doesn’t cling that hard to her skin.

 

.

 

He teases her as they stand against the wall of her hallway, his mouth on her neck dropping kisses along the way as it travels to suck on a very particular spot below her ear, hard; it makes her toes curl – she can’t _believe_ he remembers that; it was almost three years ago, for fuck’s sake. She feels one of his hands balancing them, still, on the side of her shoulder, while the other reaches low below her knee, moving along her calf to the inside of her thigh. She feels him playing with the hem of her pants, the lace soft against his fingers, and with that and whatever he thinks he’s doing to her neck she can’t suppress a loud moan that escapes her mouth unannounced, so loud she feels him chuckling against her. When two of his fingers snake past her underwear, though, she –

 

“Wait,” she whispers.

 

She doesn’t know what makes her say it, or how the word even leaves her mouth without her biting it down but it does, intruding, like the monster under her bed.

 

Clive steps away from her for a moment, his hand dropping to his side. He remains close, though, close enough that she can still feel droplets falling from his hair onto her skin. She looks up at him, staring into his eyes; his fingers brush a curl behind her eyes. “What’s wrong?” He asks, muttering against her skin. “You alright?”

 

She bites her lip, loses all notion of time, unmoving, against him, watching, in the dark, ready to kill to anyone who would ever dare take him away from her. It’s not that simple, she knows: she doesn’t feel that way about him all the time but right now, she does.

 

So, she _smiles._ Smiles so large it hurts, so large she thinks it could split her cheeks, her eyes sparkling and blinking away the tears of relief she didn’t know flooded her eyes moments before. Clive smiles, too, because she does, mostly, and she’s pretty sure he doesn’t _understand_ what he just did, really, and that’s the best thing about it.

 

Quietly, she reaches for the back of his neck and pulls him back to her, kisses him wide, open mouthed, with everything she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to put in words. His right hand is soft against her bare shoulders, tracing circles on her skin, at the junction of the hem of her dress. She likes it there, she smiles to herself, it’s comforting, soothing but right now, she thinks liked it better where it was before. She’s feeling bold, tonight – or she’s pretending to be, at least, because well, _we do all want to be better people than we are_ , don’t we? - so she laces her fingers with his and takes it back down against the inside of her thigh, tracing a wet line to the lace of her underwear. She feels him take control of their movements, just then, his fingers teasing her over the fabric. He must feel the wetness between her legs when he speaks, she thinks, because she feels it too.

 

“Shit, Marth,” he says against her ear, with a cheeky smile on his lips.

 

“Don’t pride yourself too much,” she smirks, her mouth dancing over his collarbone. “That’s mostly the rain.”

 

He laughs into her hair. “Ouch, way to boost a man’s ego.”

 

The funny thing is: she’s never really been into banter, during sex. In that department, she’s more of a show than a tell kind of person, if you’d like, preferring action to millions of instructions and compliments thrown up in the air. Yet, tonight, anything that he says in that low, husky tone of his, it both makes her want to roll her eyes at him and want to get him inside of her, _right now_ , like there’s no middle ground. She smiles against him, trying to think of anything but him, attempting to regain some self-control. “I’m just stating the facts, here,” she manages to say, her breath caught in her throat.

 

She feels him chuckling, his body moving against hers in waves, his mouth back against her neck. “Hmhm,” he hums, against her skin; she shivers all the way down her spine.

 

“Just fuck me, will you?”

 

It’s out of her mouth before it really makes its way to the back of her brain, - it’s her body speaking, there, really, - and Clive laughs, bursts out laughing against her; she can’t bring herself to even be a little bit mad. He shakes his head at her, staring into her eyes, and: “Impatient, are we?” he says but is quick to follow her when she proceeds to gently push him off her and drag his sorry arse down the hall to her bedroom, unzipping her dress and pulling it over her shoulders. She smirks when sees him as he watches it fall to the floor, dazed.

 

The rest, she thinks, is probably not worth getting into. It’s acquired taste, really, and memory, so to speak, discovering new things, trying out old ones and hoping they have the desired effect. It’s better than Nottingham, objectively, because they know each other better, she thinks, through the last two years, and because they do, amazingly, remember a thing or two about each other’s bodies. Clive, of course, doesn’t fail to notice the differences.

 

His mouth is working on her nipple, a couple of fingers slid inside her, his thumb on her clit, she’s breathing heavily when he suddenly stops all movement, his fingers slipping out of her. She groans in frustration, opening her eyes to see him sort of hunched over to her side, inspecting a patch of skin below her armpit at the top of her ribs, by the side of her breast. “When did you get that?” He wonders out loud, his thumb stroking the Q.C. tattoo she got a couple years ago. She decides now is definitely not the time to have this conversation.

 

“Clive, I swear, if you do that again, I’ll kill you with my bare hands,” she tells him, pulling him back up on top of her.

 

He does make it up to her, a bit later, she’s got to admit.

 

.

 

She’s drowsing to the feeling of his breaths against her back, eyes shut, early morning, the sun already peeking past the blinds. They haven’t slept much, really, but there were other things to do, last night, and wasted opportunities to make up for. Clive’s touch is gentle on her body, barely even there, the tips of his fingers hitting spots on her skin like the soft touch of a pianist to white and black keys, a low hum escaping his lips.

 

“Morning,” he whispers as she opens her eyes. He bends down to kiss her, then moving to the side of her neck, leaving a trail of wet kisses down to her shoulder. She shivers a bit, her arms folded under her pillow, hands joined under her head. In her sleep, she threw the sheet off her legs – the air is still hot, even after the storm – and she would be lying if she didn’t admit to feeling kind of _exposed_ , right now, naked in front of him as she knows his look dances over her body, down the line of her spine.

 

She’s seen the women he fucks. She’s not generally all that insecure, but, well, there are lines on her face and stretch marks on her thighs, so to speak.

 

His touch feels nice, though, so she can’t bring herself to stop him looking. His thumb brushes an inch of skin on her side, at the top of her ribs, the same as yesterday. She smiles to herself, waits for him to ask.

 

“So, when d’you get that?” He mumbles, against her skin, stretching it a bit with his fingers. The tattoo’s black, small, she remembers going back and forth a couple of times before deciding on the font, something cursive, but not unreadable or too artsy either.

 

She smirks, glances down to look at him. He meets her gaze but doesn’t move, something playful in his eyes. “A while back,” she answers, evasive.

 

“You know that’s permanent, right?” he jokes, his fingers playing something she can’t quite identify against her skin. “What if she dies and Charles takes over? Q.C. becomes K.C. and what happens then?”

 

She shakes her head and rolls her eyes at him, but can’t keep the corners of her mouth from curving up a bit. She shifts closer to him and with a touch of her hand, she tries to pull him back up towards her, but he doesn’t budge. “Well, she’s not going to die tomorrow, is she?” she says, fake annoyance tainting her voice.

 

“Oh, you never know, a bit of flu this winter, at that age, and poof,” he pauses for effect, his hands mimicking an explosion. “K.C.”

 

She’s not even really awake, she thinks, but a lazy smile already forms across her lips. “Clive,” she says, forcing him up this time. He lies on his side next to her, his mouth inches away. “Leave my tattoo alone.”

 

He grins, catches her lips. “Did it hurt?” He asks.

 

She turns around to lie on her side, too, her thigh hooking over his hip. This is nice, she thinks, almost domestic. His breath catches in his throat, though, and she’s not sure how _domestic_ that is. “A bit,” she says.

 

He nods, quiet, like he’s loosely considering it, then crosses the distance between them again. When he breaks the kiss and moves to her collarbone, she feels his morning stubble tickling her skin. “Well, I like it,” he declares, and it’s not like she needed his approval over her two-year-old decision, but flattery is always nice to hear.

 

“Me too,” she mutters, pulling him back up to catch his lips. A playful battle of tongues and limbs ensues as they push each other’s buttons, she laughs when she finally wins and shoves him back down on the bed, settling on top of him. Her hand travels down between them, stopping right above his hips. “You know what else I like?” She whispers, teasing.

 

There’s a twinkle in his eyes when he speaks, a breath that’s coming out a bit short. “After last night, I might have an idea, yeah,” he smirks, his hands settling on her hips, letting her take the lead.

 

.

 

A few minutes later, her mouth is wide open above his, his fingers teasing the inside of her thigh, erection strong against her when his phone rings, blaring shrills echoing around her bedroom. “Ignore it,” she tells him and hears a chuckle escaping his lips, his chest moving against hers. To his credit, though, he does let it go to voicemail and rolls them over to gain better access.

 

She feels him slip a couple of fingers inside her and moans, loudly, before she can bite her bottom lip to suppress it. She sees that cocky smile of his tugging at the corner of his lips again, teasing against her ear. “ _Again_ , someone’s impatient,” he says.

 

She doesn’t mean to, but her hips begin to rock against his hand off their own accord.

 

“Shut up and keep going,” she says. It frankly feels too good for him to stop.

 

She hears him laugh, again, nodding strongly against her. “Yes, Miss,” he grins, his breath hitting her collarbone. The phone stops ringing – finally, - and his mouth suddenly leaves her neck, lips leaving a trail of wet kisses down her sternum.

 

To tell the truth, she sort of expects him to climb back up, eventually, but to her surprise, his mouth doesn’t stop its journey down, not until she feels his tongue over her. A gasp catches in her throat, a thought briefly hitting the back of her mind about how silly she must look, right now, on her back, naked in front of him, completely at his mercy, but she can’t really bring herself to care. _Okay_ , she thinks, she can definitely go along with this. His hold is strong against her hips, keeping her in place.

 

A few minutes later, his phone goes off, again. He ignores it, again. She thanks the Gods for that, _again_ , her nails careful not to really _dig_ into his scalp, a strangled gasp escaping her throat as he sucks, hard, on her clit, a mix of pain and pleasure flooding her brain, and _oh God,_ she’s almost there, if he could just –

 

_Bloody. Fucking. Phone._ She thinks as the loud shrills start again. _Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it_ , her brain begs, high on endorphins, just a couple more minutes, please. But of course, the third time’s the charm, for him, and he doesn’t. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” still, she hears him swear as she can’t help but groan audibly, his lips leaving her as he rolls off to the side of her bed. On the fourth ring, he finally locates his mobile in the pocket of his discarded jeans, picks it up, sliding his thumb across the screen. “Harriet, what?!” he barks into the receiver, sitting up a bit, lying on his back.

 

_That. Fucking. Woman._ Martha’s brain articulates, rolling her eyes almost all the way to the back of her skull. It takes her breathing a few seconds to ease up a bit, enough to hear Harriet go on a full on rant at the other end of Clive’s phone.

 

“Jesus, Harriet, I was _busy,_ ” he snaps back. She has to admit she does smile a bit at that, in spite of herself, and yes, ‘busy’ is exactly what they were _._

_Well, now_ , she thinks, looking around the room, lying naked an frustrated on tangled sheets. As she listens to Clive bicker over something regarding Chambers – it’s hard to bring herself to care, really, when all she can think about is where exactly his mouth was, moments ago, - she considers her options. Finishing things off herself in the shower seems like an attractive one - after all, he didn’t _have_ to pick up: his fault, not hers, - but as she looks at him, half sat up against the headrest, she suddenly has a better idea.

 

In a few, swift, revengeful movements, she moves from her side of the bed to go kneel between his legs, looking for the right angle to go about this. Suddenly, she feels his eyes on her as he tenses, knows him well enough to know that’s he’s completely understood her game. She feels him lay a hand on her shoulder.

 

“Don’t,” he mouths, his hand covering the receiver, a warning glance in his eyes.

 

She smirks, staring back up. “I think I will,” she mouths, too. It’s the price to pay for leaving her high and, well, wet, so to speak.

 

She takes him in her hand, first, teasing a bit; his breath quickens above her.

 

“Yes, Harriet,” he stresses, speaking somewhat louder into his phone. “Look, can I call you b-” he starts, visibly trying to get himself out of this situation. Martha smirks – is almost _glad_ – when she hears the other woman ignore him, continuing to speak at the other end of the line.

 

She ignores another warning look from Clive as she lowers herself closer to him, finds a comfortable enough position so that she won’t have to move again, and brings her mouth down to drop a kiss at the tip of his cock. Then, that’s when it all starts.

 

She hasn’t done this in a while, to be fully honest, but she used to be quite good at it, once upon a time, so it comes back to her pretty fast. She decides to tease him first, mostly because she figures it’s fun to watch as he twitches and struggles to keep a straight face while speaking to Harriet, running her tongue from base to tip, drawing circles around his shaft as she starts taking him in her mouth. She sets a nice rhythm, she thinks, a smart combination of tongue, lips and hands getting him deeper and deeper every time she pulls out, taking him in until he rests just shy of her gag reflex. She glances up, her mouth still busy: his eyes are closed, breathing laboured, he’s trying very hard to ignore her, she thinks, but also doesn’t seem to be able to pay much attention to what Harriet is saying on the phone.

 

She stops in her movements, suddenly, catches his look, and _sucks._ Judging by his reaction, if this is a game, she’s winning it by a very large margin _._

 

A loud groan escapes his lips and a curse under his breath, his free hand balled up in a fist, gripping at the sheets. She hears Harriet calling loudly into the receiver: “Clive?” the other woman says, and Martha has to let him out of her mouth for a second, unable to suppress a laugh.

 

Clive, apparently, is not really able to think straight, right now. “What, er, yeah, sorry, what were you saying?”

 

She knows as he eyes her that this is turning into some sort of a game, now, of whether or not he’ll give in and hang up so she’s not surprised when, as she takes him back into her mouth, Clive’s fingers thread into her hair, this time, attempting to pull her back up. Instead, she manages to cover his hand with hers and keep it there, his nails digging into her scalp. She looks up at him, her lips wrapped around him, and has the gall to take a hand off him and use it to gently play with his balls: it drives him _wild._

“Listen, Harriet, I’m going to fucking call you back, alright?” He mumbles into the phone, giving up, visibly not bothering waiting for a response, just sort of throwing it across the bed, his attention entirely focused on her, now. She barely suppresses a laugh and keeps working on him, sucking, and teasing and adding her hand to the mix. “Jesus, Marth, if you don’t stop now, I’m not going to –”

 

Truth be told, when she started this, she sort of thought of it as payback for leaving her the way he did – to answer bloody Harriet, no less, - as something that she’d stop when either side of the conversation hung up, leaving them free to continue where they left off. The thing is: now, she’s kind of enjoying herself, too, watching him breathe, and groan and writhe under her. There’s something so incredibly hot about it, thinking that he’s like this because of her. So, she interrupts him, mid-sentence, lets him know just that. “Clive, I’m not going to stop now.”

 

She sees his eyes open wide, mouth gaping at her before she leans back down.

 

She’s starting to know him, now, which makes it easier to figure out what works, what elicits a response and what doesn’t, as she works towards getting him off. Armed with that knowledge and her hands, and her lips, and her tongue, and his attention that’s certainly not leaving her, now, it really doesn’t take long. She’s got him exactly where she wants him when he suddenly mumbles, “Marth, I’mma –” and doesn’t have enough time to finish that thought.

 

Now, had she absolutely wanted to pull back, she smiles to herself, it wouldn’t have been much of a warning, so lucky she doesn’t really mind that much. He loses all control in her mouth, thrusting forward with a groan; she has a small celebration inside her head when she doesn’t gag, lets him ride out his orgasm, licks and sucks, and swallows until he’s done, lying as dead against her bed. She can’t help but laugh softly to herself seeing him like this, as she gives him one last kiss and climbs back up next to him, wiping whatever’s left of spit and cum on her mouth against the sheets.

 

She lays her head on his shoulder, draping an arm around him when he finally opens his eyes. “Jesus, Marth, was that real?” he mumbles suddenly and she laughs, out loud, from the bottom of her heart, it makes her whole body shake.

 

“Yeah, I think it was,” she says just before his lips catch hers, pulling her into a lazy, sloppy kiss. Sure, she’s still wet as fuck and still hopes to get her end of the bargain, eventually, but that can wait a bit, she decides.

 

As his breathing gradually goes back to normal, she notices him looking around her bedroom, at the pictures on her nightstand, her half-packed bags for Bolton in the corner, their clothes scattered on the floor. She wonders what he sees, in that mess of hers, that she doesn’t. His arm drapes around her and pulls her on her side, closer to him, settling on her hip. She hums against his chest. “I’m sorry for, er, you know –” He starts and trails off, glancing down at her.

 

She smiles, pats his chest a bit. She waits for the end of his sentence that never comes. She doesn’t _know,_ actually, there are three options, really. “If you’re apologising for leaving me out there all worked up to answer your bloody phone, apology accepted, I think we’ve successfully established new priorities for the future,” she says, feels him chuckle against her. His fingers lazily trace a line up and down her side; she shivers. “If you’re apologising for coming into my mouth, well, that’s the way one’s supposed to do it, Clive.”

 

This time, as she finishes speaking, a half-gasp/half-laugh leaves his mouth, his breath caught up somewhere inside his throat at the thought. He looks down at her, an eyebrow raised. “That’s, er, good to know,” he says.

 

She pushes herself up and kisses him, mostly to wipe that stupid smile off his face. “And if you’re apologising for anything else: don’t,” she finishes, staring into his eyes. “I had fun last night,” she adds, her voice oddly soft and quiet. She doesn’t only mean the sex. She thinks he knows that.

 

The smile on his lips slowly fades and so does the flirty look in his eyes. It’s replaced by something else, something more intense, something she knows and recognises from his silk party, from when he said –

 

“And yet, you’ve still packed your bags,” he points out.

 

She’s lying against him, her head on her folded arms on his chest, staring straight into his eyes, can’t escape the hurt tone in his voice. Sometimes, she remembers, many times, actually, she doesn’t know what to say to him.

 

“I’m going to Bolton,” she admits, looking back at him.

 

“How long?”

 

“I –”

 

The truth is: she’s not quite sure, exactly. She doesn’t think of it as permanent, per se - just enough time for her let herself think, consider what she’s going to do with her life, from now on. The thing is: even if she doesn’t think she can survive living with her mother for more than a couple of weeks, there might be a final decision, at the end of it, and another move. Halfway across the country is one thing, she knows, halfway across the world is another, and it’s still an option, to be honest, she’s not quite sure she fits here, anymore, and she’s not sure how to tell him that, tell the truth, without sounding like a bitch. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought him home, last night, after all.

 

“Promise me you’ll tell me,” he asks, his eyes locked on hers. “If you make it to Heathrow again, promise me you’ll tell me.”

 

She opens her mouth to argue, say it’s not that simple, say it was kind of a spur of the moment thing, justify –

 

“I won’t try to stop you,” he swears, covering whatever she had to say. “But I need to know. Want to know. I’d miss you, you know that, right?” He pauses, brushes a strand of hair off her face. “Friendly face, remember?” He adds, with a bittersweet smile on his face.

 

“Friendly face,” she repeats, burying her head in his neck, feeling his blood pulsing against her ear. She likes the sound of it, she decides. “I promise.”

 

Lying with her head on his shoulder, that morning, she’s quiet for a very long time, feeling his chest rise and fall against her cheek; she doesn’t move, just _thinks._ She’s been thinking a lot, lately - about Sean, about her life, – but she didn’t think much last night. Not that she regrets it, exactly, but she’s always liked the cosiness of living in her own head – her own organized mess. It’s safe and comfortable, up there, and it allows her to stand outside overlooking the precipice without ever getting hurt. Or so she used to think.

 

Clive’s not stupid, and she knows he knows she’s thinking about him, right now - about them - but he doesn’t ask. He’s always been a quick learner, and isn’t that one of the first things they teach you in bar school: don’t ask questions you don’t already know the answer to? Again, she’s not very good at asking risky questions, either. If she was - if she could step on that ledge and actually trust him to hold her, - she thinks she’d ask the same question he asked earlier: _was that real_? Except here, she’s not even sure what _that_ refers to.

 

Last time he said he missed her, he took George’s call and let her walk away on her own. Truth be told, she doesn’t even blame him, she’s just not sure he understands what certain words mean, these days. Or maybe he does, maybe she’s the one who doesn’t, who can’t make sense of the way he shouts at her, betrays her, holds her, says ‘I love you, Martha Costello,’ and ‘means what he said’. Of the way she shouts at him, and blames him, too, and still doesn’t want him to ever go away. If she could, she thinks she’d ask if he still thinks he loves her, too.

 

Eventually, she catches herself beginning to doze off again, his touch light in her hair. She forces her eyes to open, just barely; it’s almost nine, she reads, on her watch by the desk. If she wants to be in Bolton by the time her mum clocks off work, unfortunately, they need to get moving. Turning to him, looking up, she sighs against his skin. “I need a shower,” she mumbles sleepily.

 

“Hmhm,” he vaguely acknowledges, his chest slowly rising and falling under her ear. His fingers leave her hair and slowly trail down her upper arm then fall onto her waist, carrying down to her hipbone.

 

She smiles. “We need a shower,” she amends and feels him chuckle against her, hum again, raising an eyebrow at her this time.

 

“Hmhmhmhm.”

 

She pulls herself up from his chest, looks into his eyes, stops _thinking_ again. “Come on,” she says, smiling.

 

He doesn’t need telling twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] The tattoo idea is obviously not mine but completely stolen from the wonderful fic called Martha Costello Q.C. by @madaboutalice123 on ff, which I absolutely *love*, and that you should read right away, if you haven't already! The idea is so brilliant it kind of has become a pet head canon of mine because I can totally see Martha doing that and awwww. Anyway, for the purpose of this fic, I had to change the location of said tattoo so that Clive wouldn't have seen it before, but the idea is, again, not mine.
> 
> [2] The end of the chapter is loosely inspired by a willicia The Good Wife fic by @tore-my-yellow-dress called My Boy Has Teeth (still on ff) that, frankly, you should already have read - along with all that girl's amazing work - if you've watched TGW. I just kind of liked the idea of having a similar-ish Clive/Martha scene. It just sort of popped into my head and I couldn't not write it.


	5. v.

_I don’t want anything more than to see your face when you open the door._

_You’ll make me beans on toast and a nice cup of tea and we’ll get a Chinese, and watch TV._

_Tomorrow, we’ll take the dog for a walk, and in the afternoon, maybe we’ll talk._

_I’ll be exhausted so I’ll probably sleep and we’ll get a Chinese, and watch TV._

_I know it doesn’t seem so fair, but I’ll send you a postcard when I get there._

 

Chinese – Lily Allen

 

 

 

She's never been really good at making decisions.

She's good at making professional judgment calls. They're different. There are facts and data to lean on, and the years of experience to back it up. It's GBH, not attempted murder. It's assisted suicide, not murder. It's free, not guilty.

Yet, she kept a baby because she couldn't make the appointment. She turned Clive down because she couldn't make time to think about it. She made it to Heathrow because she stepped in front of a crowd and couldn't tell them who she was.

She's not very good at making decisions because she likes to be _sure_ , and there's never a way to be _sure,_ so she waits until the facts change, until the lines become harder, until decisions make themselves. When they don't, she freezes, forced to think of every eventuality like when she was a kid and used to speed up the stairs to her bedroom, climbing over two steps at once, the skirt of her school uniform loose around her waist. She played in silence, played with scenarios that ran over and over in her head, toys scattered around her. She liked building books of what-ifs. What if animals could talk? What if dolls grew up? What if houses didn't need walls? To her mother's greatest despair, her favourite game involved the cars and the car park that she'd inherited from a distant cousin; she used to make up whole stories about them, and who was in them, and why. She was fifteen when Sean first put her at the wheel of his parents' car, one night. Today, she questions a witness and lines and lines of decision trees form in her head. It's a game, trying to get them to where she wants them to be. If the witness says 'a', ask 'b', they'll say 'c'. If witness says 'd', ask 'e'. When they say 'f', ask 'b', they'll get back to 'c'.

"Why are you going up to Bolton anyway?" Clive asks that morning, shrugging, after she laments at the hickeys he left on her neck the night before. ('I'm going to my _mother's_ , Clive,'she insisted, trying to cover whatever she could of the damage with a thick layer of foundation.

'I can't recall you complaining last night _,'_ he smiled, cocky, because _of course,_ and left the bathroom before she could reach out and slap his arm).

He asks his question innocently – well, as innocently as he can, anyway, considering she's pretty much just admitted to him that she hasn't completely ruled out fucking off to Bali yet, so she feels compelled to tell him the truth. It's fake innocence though: she knows his tricks as well as he knows hers. The woman in the mirror stares at her for a moment; she looks tired – feels tired, - dark shadows under her eyes, lines visible around her mouth. She doesn't like lying to him - has never liked doing so, - so she's become a real professional at breaking truths in half.

"To see my mother," she says, exiting the bathroom, placing her makeup and toothbrush on top of her suitcase.

He sniggers, shaking his head, his eyes set on her. "To see the house, maybe?"

She looks up at him, freezes, her hand on top of her bag, wonders how much he actually knows. She forgot she told him about this, months ago when they were still, well, something else than whatever they are now. She walked back into their room after a call, fuming; she thought she was going to throw her phone against the wall. 'My mum's moving,' she said, standing in the middle of the room, her hands on her hips.

He barely looked up, buried deep into whatever he was reading at the time. 'What do you mean _moving_? _'_

'She met this guy, couple years ago,' she explained, trying to suppress a roll of her eyes. 'She's selling the house, moving in with him. Didn't tell me, had to wait for the fucking real estate agent to phone and ask if I was interested in buying the house to learn about it.'

She remembers that Clive finally did look up at _that_ ; his voice sounding like all of this was a completely foreign world to him. _How could her mum not tell her about the house, though? How could she -_ 'Shit,' he said. 'How do you feel about that?'

It's funny, how naturally she burst out laughing, back then, shook her head at him. 'How do I feel about buying property in Bolton? Not interested.'

He sighed, throwing her a look. 'No, I mean, how do you feel about her moving in with someone else?'

Well, she thought, she's an adult, now, she's thirty-eight years old (the big four just around the corner), and she knows how she _should_ feel about it: detached, _cool,_ aware of the fact that this isn't her life, anymore _._ But then, the thing is: her parents are still her parents. And, yeah, there was and is still a part of her that feels uneasy about her mum falling in love with someone else, just like another part of her feels uneasy about the house drowning under her dad's memorabilia.

She got caught up in her own thoughts, lost her words. Clive went on, probably figured he wasn't going to get an answer from her. 'What's he like anyway? The guy?'

'Don't know,' she shrugged, sipping her coffee, sitting against the edge of her desk. 'She met him online, he's from Bury. Never met him myself.'

'That's a bit weird, don't you think?'

_Yes,_ she thought, thinking of Billy's rows with Harriet, of Clive's silk party. 'Everything's a bit weird, right now, isn't it?'

Later, she was standing against the wall of the hospital when she made the call; they had taken Billy in for another scan; her voice shook with exhaustion and helplessness. 'No, I don't have a buyer yet,' the real estate agent told her - Cristina, her name was, - her Southern European accent singing in her ear. 'To be honest, I think your mother wants too much for it, actually, if you could talk to her about it –'

Three weeks later and she hasn't, not really, figured the money she could get from her flat in London would be enough to buy a three-bedroom house in a shit part of a shit town. She looks at Clive now and wonders again how much of this he's got figured out, and why it matters to her so much. Billy died, she got assaulted, they slept together; it's sex and needing someone to lean on, the rational part of her brain argues, it's not like she owes him anything else. "I promised I'd tell you if I made it to Heathrow," she points out, watching him button up his shirt by the side of her bed. "Isn't that enough? Do you really think I'd lie to you?"

She sees him smile; her breath catches in her throat. "No," he says. Then: "I know you, Marth. You'd just take a train out of Euston Station and think that was fair game."

_It would, wouldn't it, though?_ she thinks automatically and hates how much he knows her. She sees him walk around the room to stand in front of her, stop, staring into her eyes. She smiles, biting her lip and feels herself closing the distance between them, her lips touching his. Softly, he pulls away before she has a chance to deepen the kiss; she feels his hand against her cheek.

"You need to decide, Marth. Either you stay or you go."

She feels her heart beat, desperate against her chest. "Why?" she asks. It's not like it's ever bothered him before. With her or anyone else, for that matter, her brain argues. She liked the sound of his voice, the comfort of their phone calls, the sex, too, didn't want to think.

He smiles, his thumb brushing her skin. "You know why, Marth."

They're easy words to say, she thinks, easy words to rely on in lieu of any other explanation when she's not even sure he ever meant them in the first place. She thinks of the words he screamed at her before, of the jacket he found and of Harriet he fucked and: "I don't," she says, trying to ignore the look he gives her.

And _there_ , she thinks, is when she finally lies.

.

Frankly, it's a test ride of sorts. It's what Billy told her when she was looking for her flat five years ago: 'location, location, location.'

Well, she's testing out the location now, exploring what-ifs.

.

This what-if, interestingly enough, begins with a sense of familiarity, of _belonging_ , whatever the hell that means. That's good, because she's tired of London, of facelessness and of the Airbnb her new neighbours have turned the flat next to hers into. Here, she knows the kids that hang around the corner of her mum's street. Here, she shares an understanding with them, as a matter of fact, an _understanding_ that dates back from two years ago, when one of them got arrested on some nonsensical drug possession charge at the airport in Stansted and she agreed to drag herself to youth court one very early morning to run his apparently usual coppers-fitted-me-up-wasn't-me-wasn't-there defence and make sure he didn't go home with more than a few hours of community service on his sentence. In exchange, she can park her car in front of her mum's without them trying to nick it, now.

"Hi, Miss!" they chant at her as she gets out of the car, opening the trunk to get her suitcase out.

The house hasn't changed much since they moved in when she was about five. The same stairs up to the porch, the same bricks she used to climb on as a teenager, gripping at the drain pipe for balance, trying to get home in the middle of the night. The paint on the door is old, red, cracked; her Dad used to repaint it every few years or so, she remembers, arguing that the manual work helped clear his mind. At some point, of course, his mind stopped needing _clearing_ , and the paint began to gradually wash off. She doesn't think her mum's ever had it done since.

Glancing at the kids at the corner, she nods back, smiling politely, balancing her handbag over her shoulder before standing in front of the trunk about to reach for the handle of her suitcase. One of them runs to her help, though, lifting the heavy weight in one swift motion and walking it up to her mother's doorstep. "Ah, thanks, Jamie," she smiles when he drops it up the stairs, turning around to lock the car with a beep.

Mo, she remembers, was her client. Good kid, tough circumstances. Jamie was the so-called 'boss,' - if such a word can be used with reference to a seventeen-year-old who orders his friends around, smoking weed and nicking cars all day. She can't seem to recall the name of the third one (Liam? Cian? Something Irish, she thinks).

"Reckon she's still at Tesco," Jamie mumbles in a very characteristic northern twang, eyeing the house, stepping away from the front door, shaking her out of her thoughts. _D. & M. Costello_, she reads, absentmindedly, on the tag under the doorbell. "You got the keys?" he asks. "I can crack it open for you, you know? If you don't want to wait."

She takes a tad too long to respond, her tired brain trying to process the information. A laugh eventually escapes her lips, shaking her head. "I'm good, thanks," she informs him, reaching under the flowerpot on the windowsill. It occurs to her that showing him where her mum hides the spare keys might not be the smartest of things to do, but then he apparently doesn't need them to open the door, so. She makes a mental note to tell her mum to get a better lock, next time.

He shrugs, jumping the few stairs down and running back to Mo as she steps in.

.

Inside, it smells like her parents'. Like the polish her mum uses on the wood of the cupboards, like the potatoes that roasted in the oven whenever her dad decided he was going to make 'something proper,' spending hours moving around the kitchen ranting at Margaret Thatcher's voice on the BBC. Her mum always hated cooking. She used to have this camera, though, one of the old ones you'd need to hold still for a good minute for the photograph to take; she'd creep on them on certain nights, catching stills of the both of them watching football on the telly. She'd have them developed and framed, or just stuck them around the house everywhere. On the furniture in the hallway, on the wall in the living room, on the nightstand in her bedroom. Martha thinks of the photographs she has at work, wonders if maybe that's why she keeps them. Billy smiling on her desk, her dad in the corner, and Clive - an old photo that Alan took of them as pupils tucked between credit card receipts in her wallet. Her mum has lots of pictures of her – of them, - with Dad and her own tiny, pale frame tucked between her parents. She was a quiet kid, she remembers, in school, keeping to herself, her hair so blond it was almost white, skin pearly and soft, washed by the rain.

She drags her suitcase up the two flights of stairs to her old bedroom and sits on the bed, quickly texts Clive ( _At my mum's._ She writes. _Didn't write off the car._ He sends her a thumbs up in response; she rolls her eyes). The sheets are flowery – white with pink roses on top – her mum had gotten them when she was in school, she recalls, in an attempt to make the room look a bit girlier _._ It looks like she hasn't had the heart to take Ian Curtis' poster off the wall, though, and as Martha eyes it, it feels like he's staring right back at her, leaning against the bricks of a building, smoking a cigarette. It makes her long for a fag; she's about to use the old trick with her window to climb onto the roof and satisfy her brain's need for a rush of nicotine when she hears her mum's voice calling her out from the hallway.

"Martha? You home?"

"Yeah!" she shouts back, sighing, putting the cigarettes away. "Up here!"

.

It's not that the next few days are uneventful, per se. It's just that they're filled with light details that don't bear consequences.

On Monday, she runs into a friend from college, two beautiful red-headed kids following her every move, and schedules catching up drinks over the weekend, the smile on her face unusually genuine.

.

On Wednesday, she waits until her mum leaves for work and buys flowers from the shop at the corner of the street, lays them down at the cemetery, her shoes wet with the morning dew. She remembers Billy, that day, and the way he insisted she went home, his gaze hard and uncompromising. 'I'm _fine_ ,' she argued as he followed her into her room, slamming a hand on the binder she was trying to open. Her mum had called into Chambers because she hadn't been able to reach her in court.

'Miss –' he shot back with a sigh, she didn't let him finish.

'I need to be working, Billy,' she said, glancing away. Clive looked up, then, met her eyes.

'Leave it, Billy,' he said, before looking back down at the paperwork on his desk.

.

On Thursday, she accompanies her mother to the market, picks strawberries and peaches to eat on the rare occasion where the sun hits the back garden. As it happens, August has quickly rolled around around here, and suddenly it's sixteen degrees and rainy again, as though last month never even happened. She's not complaining, though, prefers the light rain and chill they get over the stiffness of the air back in London. They vaguely talk about how things have been, lately, about her mum's upcoming retirement plans and Martha lies through her teeth about work, doesn't really know how to _explain_ when the news about Sean don't seem to have reached this side of Bolton, yet. It's an easy enough fiction to narrate.

.

Clive doesn't call, this time around. She doesn't know if it's the distance she's imposed upon them by coming here, or if it's simply a result of the night they spent together or of the discussion they had in the morning, but he doesn't even text, either.

She wonders if this is him giving her time to think, or if she's been stupid enough to think that taking him home could ever solve anything. They had fun, they had sex, that's all it was, she thinks, it doesn't mean anything.

She wonders if he knows she lied to him.

.

Still, though, when she does meet up for drinks with Joanne, later over the weekend, and after about an hour's worth of updates on her kids – the red-headed ones from before, - and Bolton gossip that makes Martha feel somewhat uncomfortable ('Have you heard he's in _jail_?' Jo says, then: 'well, you must have, being in London and all that –' She doesn't know how, exactly, Jo isn't aware of the extent to which she has indeed _heard_ that he's in jail, now – _guilty_ , she hears, over and over again in her head _–_ but obviously does not attempt to correct her), Jo asks, sipping on her wine: "So, how long are you staying?"

Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail tonight, black strands falling past the back of her neck. She used to own this gorgeous red, back then, the same shade as her kids, Martha remembers, wonders why she keeps dying it black, now.

She doesn't want to seem odd, saying she doesn't know, wants this to stay a casual night out, rather than an interrogation session, so, "couple of weeks," she says, instead.

It's funny: she doesn't have many friends, in London, much less female ones. She misses that, a little, misses knowing people since they were kids, looks at Jo's life and figures it must be nice to know that people care about you.

"Good," Jo says, smiling. "So, look, I don't want to force you into anything, but I do have someone who might want to buy you a drink…"

Martha rolls her eyes, signalling, too, for another glass of wine. "God, I really don't need you to hook me up with some random -"

Jo interrupts. It's almost funny, how adamant she is about it. "He's not some random guy, alright? He was in school with us, a couple years older, name's Ian Witton." Martha briefly considers the name; it doesn't really ring a bell. "Accountant. Recently divorced," Jo points out, her gold painted plastic bracelets clinking against the counter. They're sitting at the bar in the local pub, a group of young people drunkenly talking (shouting) over the music a few tables down; they have to raise their voices too, in tune with everybody else. Someone tried to buy them drinks a while back, but Martha thinks Jo's wedding ring scared him away. "Reasonably handsome, all his hair left," she says and Martha laughs as the bartender slides another glass of red in her hands. She nurses it, takes a sip.

"Yeah?" She asks playfully, glancing at Jo. "What does that hide?"

"Oh, come on! I say it's a professional bias that you think everyone's got something to hide. He's a nice bloke, he's not broke, and I'm sure he'd love to catch up with you."

Martha, shakes her head, swallowing wine. She's on her fourth glass (on top of the one she's had over a dinner), so there's a nice buzz going in her head at the moment; it makes her feel slightly giddy. She reaches for her phone, wanting to text Clive ( _bad idea,_ the alarm bells ring in her head), but realises Jo's eyes are still set on her so she puts it down, pretending she was just checking the time.

"Thanks for the consideration," she tells Jo, smiling. "But I'm good."

"Oh, come on!" She says, again, louder than last time. The two men at the bar a couple of stools down quickly glance at them, she lowers her voice. It's her phrase, Martha's noticed, she uses it a lot. "You're single, almost forty – I know, me too," she adds, when Martha opens her mouth. "Look, you don't have to marry him, okay? Just go in for a bit of fun, will you?" She asks, low, like they're putting together a secret ploy. "And tell me all about it, so I can live vicariously through you. It's not like I'm getting that much action with Michael on that front –" She says and immediately blushes, biting her lip and rapidly glancing away as Martha laughs. "It's not that –" she adds. "I mean, I love Michael, but we've been married ten years, now, so, you know…"

Well, she doesn't, really, but pretends she does, can imagine it at least, from the one real relationship she's ever had, a few years back (well, _real_ : three years, two of which she spent refusing to say the words, one of which she spent lying through her teeth every time she muttered 'love you' on the phone because she was too scared to lose him). She does recall it becoming comfortable, after a while, though, just the two of them, suddenly thinks back of how comfortable it felt, too, with Clive, back in London. _Jesus Christ,_ the voice in her head says before she can finish that trail of thought, _you can't think of shit like that._

"Sorry," she shakes her head at Jo, smiling. "I can't."

"Oh, come on!" _Again._ "Have a little consideration for –"

But, suddenly, Jo trails off. Looks at her. Really _looks_ at her. Looks at her phone and back to her.

"Oh. My. God," she says, mouthing every word, like she did when she was fifteen. She really hasn't changed much. It's almost refreshing, when Martha's just been feeling like she's aged a hundred years, lately. "You _lied._ You _are_ seeing someone," she adds and Martha's look focuses on the wood of the counter, taking a big swig of her wine.

"No," she says. Half-truths, again.

"Please," Jo stresses, downing the last inch of her drink. "It's written all over your face."

"It's complicated," Martha counters, concedes, drinks.

Later, the question falls off Jo's lips like the easiest thing in the world, as their waiter brings the bill. "Do you love him?" she asks, and Martha focuses her stare on the lines of red wine items on the small piece of paper and types in the pin to her debit card, not wanting to think about what that headache's going to feel like, tomorrow.

"We've been best friends for the last fifteen years, of course, I love him," she says, walking a very, very thin rope. It's true: she loves Clive, of course, she does.

Jo rolls her eyes, slurs a little in her speech, presses. "That wasn't what I meant, doesn't answer my question."

Martha smiles. "Well, you should ask better questions, then."

"Oh, don't go all barrister, er, barrister-y on me," Jo instructs, her chocolate brown eyes set on Martha's. "Do you love him as in -" she starts, looking around, trying to think of an analogy. Her drunken brain seems to give up. "Oh, you know what I mean," she sighs, staring at Martha.

She laughs, picking up her bag from over the back of her stool. The Earth spins a bit, she might want to cab the way home, she thinks. She knows what Jo means, of course. 'It's apparently like wanting to see someone else open a Christmas present more than you want to open your own,' she'd heard an American say, once, as he sat on a bar stool next to her, deep in conversation with another girl. She had curly brown hair, Martha remembers, and eyes bright enough to light up the room. At the time, she remembers looking over at him and thinking he looked like he was quoting somebody else.

"Well, that's not what you asked, so that's all you're getting," she speaks, intentionally enigmatic, walking towards the door.

"Oh, come on!" Jo shouts at her back, again, laughing, chasing after her.

.

She meets the real estate agent at the house a few days later, to talk over tea. Her skin is dark and her clothes much too bright for a place that's this far from the equator. She seems kind, though, and that's a quality you don't see in a lot of people, these days. "I know this is a bit odd," the woman says, looking at the documentation she laid out on the kitchen countertop. "Considering you probably know this house better than anyone but I just, you know, wanted to give you all the information you might need. Have you talked to your mother about this?"

"I'm still not really sure, so –"

"Okay, well, here's what I can tell you," she says, starts. Over the next half hour, they go through the house and the tiles she'd need to get fixed on the roof and the taxes she might end up having to pay and: "Look, I'm not going to lie to you, I've had a couple interested last week, but they said they have to talk with a bank about a loan, so they'd get back to me in a couple of weeks. I guess that's how much time you have to decide," she tells her, drinking a last gulp of tea.

"Okay," she nods. "Thank you."

.

She doesn't hear from Clive, so the first phone call she gets from Chambers in a very, very long while is, oddly, from Bethany. It's Friday afternoon, her mum is watching reruns of some sort of serialized singing competition she seems to be very passionate about when her phone rings and vibrates in her hand. She gets a somewhat murderous sideways glare for the interruption it causes to whatshisface's painfully off-key rendition of _Don't Look Back in Anger_ (Sally can, indeed, really wait), so she steps out in the garden to take it.

"Miss, I, um," the girl starts, pausing for words. "I was asked to, um, clear your desk and there's this, um, plant – I think it's a bamboo actually – it's looking pretty dead, to be honest but I just didn't know –" she rambles on, stops; Martha laughs.

"Yeah, you can throw that out," she says, smiling sympathetically into the receiver – a client gave it to her once, she recalls, she kept adding water to it, and it just kept dying anyway.

Bethany inquires about a couple more items that Martha frankly didn't even remember she still owned; it gets less awkward, after a while. Her tea's gone cold, though, by this point, from the wind that keeps sending shivers down her spine.

"Just out of curiosity, how many boxes do you have?" Martha asks when they're done, running a hand against the back of her neck.

"Um, just a couple boxes, Miss. Mister Reader's offered to keep them, until you, um, decide what to do."

She appreciates the tactfulness with which Bethany dances around the subject (the girl's always been smart, after all), but still tries not to think too much about what it means. The rational part of her brain understands this: she hasn't been in Chambers for weeks, has very publicly made it clear to Harriet that she isn't coming back: it's only logical that they'd move someone else into her room now – maybe Amy, she muses, - but she's got to admit that there is something odd about thinking that this is it, the end of _something_ , at least. Fifteen years of her life coming down to a couple of boxes Clive promises to safe keep until she gets back – _if_ she ever comes back, her brain amends - and a dead plant.

"Is Mister Reader in?" She asks, biting her lip, missing the sound of his voice against her ear. It's selfish, really, she shouldn't call him until she's made a proper decision, but -

"Yes, Miss, but I think he's in a meeting; do you want me to go and –"

"No," she interrupts, smiling and shaking her head. "That's all right, don't worry," she adds. "Thank you, Bethany."

.

She admits to her mum that she's going to stay a little while longer over dinner the next day, Chinese takeaway steaming from the flower-patterned dish coming straight out of the microwave. She gauges her reaction, the wood of the dinner table coming like a bridge between them. It used to be a fence, she remembers, when she was young and angry, and slammed doors when her father got furious about her grades.

"You don't look surprised," Martha observes, pushing food around her plate. Her mother cuts a bit of potato with her knife and chews, nodding to herself.

"You never show up here without a good reason, Martha, and it's not Christmas for another six months," her mother says matter-of-factly like this is a non-event, or maybe something she expected to happen way before it even did. It makes her sad, in a way, seeing how remote from home her life now is. "I'd just like to know what this is about, this time, because with the wine you've been drinking, I can already tell you're not pregnant."

Her mum's always known how to poke the most tender spots – that's where she gets it from, after all – but it's never nice to be on the receiving end of the stick. She stays silent for a bit, downs her drink.

"No, I'm not," she says, sighing.

.

It's an extra few days before she eventually makes it to Manchester, had to stay at the house while they had a couple of visits – nothing conclusive and Cristina the real estate agent hasn't heard from the other potential buyers, yet – she spots something acute to genuine sadness in Jamie's eyes when he sees the "for sale" sign finally go up by the side of the stairs.

She knocks on the office door, lets herself in when she hears a voice say "come in", pushing the door closed behind her. It's exactly like she remembers it, all wood and old furniture and random memorabilia crammed into a room the size of a shoebox, her eyes never knowing where to look. Thomas Evershed stands up as soon as he spots her, pulls her into a hug.

"Martha Costello, here in Manchester!" he says, looking at her like he can't quite believe his eyes. They've caught up a handful of times over the years, at odd conferences and bar gatherings, but it's been a while since she's last seen him. A couple of years, maybe three, she remembers he sent her a congratulating note when she got silk.

"I'm visiting family," she simplifies, smiling back. He hasn't changed much, really, tall, older and somewhat still charming. His trademark long, grey hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail behind his head; she'd always wondered if he already had it before she met him, during his days at the bar, and how that blended in with the rigorous dress code.

She eyes him as he releases her and takes a step back, notices the coat on his shoulders, bag packed. "Oh, you were leaving I'm sorry –" she starts but sees him wave a dismissive hand at her, moving around his office to gather his belongings.

"Oh, don't be stupid, I was but I'm not anymore. Let's get out of here and get coffee and a snack, though, I'm starving."

They head to a Starbucks a couple of streets down (a grande Americano for her, two sugars; a chocolate muffin and a venti soy mocha – two shots, only – with extra peppermint on top for him) and fall into an easy, comfortable conversation as they wait for their drinks. He offers her a bit of the muffin, she declines.

"I was sorry to hear about Billy," he tells her as they finally settle down, holding his coffee close to his lips. She's careful to take the lid off hers before taking a sip, recalling that one time when she got what felt like third degree burns on her tongue for a good week. "I was at the funeral, thought I'd see you."

"I was late," she explains. "I was standing in the back." Both are true affirmations, technically, though the causation link she knows she's suggesting between those two elements isn't. Clive had kept her a seat by his side, after all, but she chose not to take it.

"I heard you left Shoe Lane," he adds, eyeing her reaction across the table. She holds his gaze.

"News travels fast," she observes, taking a sip.

"Ah, the bar's grapevine does wonders."

The truth is: it kind of is why she came to him, and maybe he knows that, already. It takes her a good half hour to get through everything: Sean, Billy, her application to be Head of Chambers, the shift in Shoe Lane's work; but it feels good to tell someone else about it. Someone who doesn't know, wasn't there, but still understands her world, what it means to hold this kind of job, to say your work is your life like that's not necessarily a bad thing. She's never seen him as a mentor, not really – he never taught her anything – but he did see her, once upon a time, in a classroom filled with a hundred other students and believed in her. The last time she saw him in London, he was the first to tell her to apply for silk.

'I'm too young,' she told him, laughing, over drinks somewhere that wasn't just around the corner.

'So, what? Try this time around. If it doesn't work, you'll try again later.'

"So, you're here for guidance," he points out, now. She's tempted to deny it, tell him that it's more complicated than that, that she needed to talk to a neutral party but –

"I suppose," she says, after a beat. "Yes. I mean, you've been there before: left the bar, went on to do something else. How did that happen?"

When he speaks, he talks about things she recognises, understands, but hasn't quite ever felt, yet. He talks about putting in too many hours into something he didn't really care about anymore, about defending client after client and feeling stuck getting people out of jail only for them to get caught again for the same shit months later. Strangely, she finds herself wanting to fight him. Wanting to say that they really are, helping people. That she really did care about her clients, no matter how screwed up they were, that she feels angrier at how pointless the system is than at her clients for committing second offences. That, and the fact that she's never really been convinced that putting ninety per cent of the people who are currently in jail in jail has ever provided any positive change in society.

"You should come speak to my students," Evershed says, still gauging her reaction as he says it. She raises an eyebrow, wonders what she could possibly have to say to a bunch of twenty-year olds taking law at university. She's always liked having a pupil, has always known that much, but that's not because she thinks she has some sort of invaluable, original wisdom to pass on, it's just that she selfishly likes their enthusiasm and showing them around her world. She's never been that interested in the law as a scientific subject, has never seen herself buried in hundreds of years' worth of precedent to review. She likes the law as a dirty brick wall to break apart. "Come on," he presses, though, smiling at her. "I'm teaching a summer class on the Theory of Court Practice, you should come."

"They show up over the summer to learn about _the theory of court practice_?" she laughs, shaking her head.

He chuckles at her. "As strange as it may seem, they do. They're either very dedicated or really need the credits, I don't know."

She laughs with him, catches herself nodding. "I'll think about it."

.

Fifteen minutes in and she already knows what he's doing. She gets it now, looking at the students, answering their questions about work and life, and her opinions on the criminal justice system, and what innocent until proven guilty really means, in the grand scheme of things. He did the same thing fifteen years ago, saw her speak unprepared, countering his points in a classroom, in a Starbucks, and saw something that she didn't.

The questions? They're not all passionate inquiries about the law and the criminal bar, and great principles. One of them asks about the money and the big criminal cases that attract the spotlights. Another one asks about how to get tenancy at Shoe Lane and gets laughs from the entire class. Work-life balance at the bar is also a big one and: "I'd love to tell you it's getting somewhere," she tells the girl who asked that question, – it's always a girl, of course, and it makes her angry. "And I do wish it was, believe me. But then I really don't know many women in silk, right now, who aren't married to their jobs."

"And you never wanted anything else?" The girl follows up. She doesn't know her name, - only knows her by the fact that she's wearing a very bright, orange summer dress with electric blue straps draping her shoulders - but really wishes she did.

"No," she says, genuinely, honestly, because she didn't. Never dreamed of it, the big white weddings and the kids around her ankles, school choirs and Christmas parties, a house in the suburbs. _Anything else_ got thrown upon her lap, once, and then taken away, but she sees it as something that happened rather than as something she ever wished to happen. She was happy. With work, with Shoe Lane – _family_.

So, no, they're not all passionate questions about the law and the criminal bar, and great principles, but some of them are. They ask about the racial make-up of the jail population, and about whether she thinks prison sentences are effective, and when she mentions that a) she doesn't prosecute and b) doesn't do rape, she gets a lot of questions about that, too. And, sure she gets the usual 'how can you defend them?' as well, but they come from a place of interest and need for advice rather than from a place of disgust. She finds herself smiling, most of the time, as she speaks.

At the end, Evershed steers the discussion back to where she thinks he wanted it to end it originally, on an advice note. "And what would you say to young people right now," he points at the class with a wink for effect. "Who want to get into this profession? Let's say three things."

She smiles, looks up at the ceiling for a second, thinks about it. "Be loyal," she says, first and foremost. "Be fierce," comes later, but still. "And have fun," she finishes, glancing at him, remembering his own words, when she walked out of that moot court. "Because ultimately," she says with a sigh. "When you sign up for this job, it's like you're running, stumbling and hopping onto a train that never, ever stops. It's case after case, after case, and hours after hours and if you're not having fun – with those cases, with the people you work with – there really isn't a point in doing it."

In the end, she gets a round of applause she doesn't really think she deserves, exchanges a bit of small talk with Evershed as she watches the students pack their stuff, some of them lingering, she knows, probably to ask her more questions they didn't want to ask in front of everybody else. She stays an extra half hour there and tries to answer all of them to the best of her ability.

_So, yeah_ , she smiles as she talks to a blue-haired girl who's worried about her background and about her grades, and about her nerves not being good strong for crim, when she asked Evershed for guidance, a couple days ago, and he wasn't particularly forthcoming, she thought she shouldn't have asked, felt stupid for asking, for thinking that a single person she hadn't seen in years was ever going to hand her the solution to all her problems. Yet, now, she knows what he's done, there.

They're not all passionate questions about the law and the criminal bar, and great principles because they're not all passionate about the law and the criminal bar, and great principles.

They're not. But she is. Still is.

And he's just shown her that much.

Frankly, she doesn't know what to do with that.

.

_Roy_ sits with them at lunch on Sunday, navigating expertly between different pieces of furniture to set the chicken dish her mum's spent hours working on this morning on the table. Martha's been careful enough to take sufficient notice of his face now that she thinks she'd be able to recognize him if necessary, which, by all standards, is already an improvement. He's tall, bald, casually touches her mother's shoulder.

"So, Martha, how long are you staying here in Bolton?" He asks with a polite smile, once everyone's settled down and started eating. "It must be one of the nice things about working as an independent, isn't it? Being able to take time off when you please?"

It's not that she doesn't like him, per se. It's just that he's the kind of person who thinks that longer prison sentences make people less likely to reiterate their offenses (jails having turned into five-star hotels to 'these kids' who just don't want to go ahead and find 'real' work – he thinks the army would do them some good) and that the death penalty must have surely deterred some of those psychopaths from acting on their impulses, back then, doesn't she think?

It's funny, really, because they're sitting at the very table they used to have their Sunday family lunches at, when she lived here, and she can't count the number of times when she stormed off on her parents over rows about her grades, her friends, and politics. It's not that her family were ever conservatives, it's just that, well, she's always been the most passionate speaker in the room. Of course, she's not fifteen anymore, so she doesn't storm off on bloody Roy just yet, simply chooses to respectfully disagree, and manages to only get a tiny bit snappy when he decides to cut her mid-sentence for the third time in a row. They're both respectful of each other but she can't say she doesn't notice the tense smile on her mum's face when she announces dessert, visibly relieved to be able to change the subject. She looks happier when she's around him, though, Martha notices.

She hears his car pull out of the driveway and kills her cigarette before her Mum makes it up the stairs and into her room, stepping out through the window onto the roof. She's never quite understood why, exactly, but the people who built this house up put it together in a way that made the neighbour's flat roof accessible from the window of her bedroom, if only you were brave enough to step over the small gap in between. She used to play up here, sometimes, trying to stay out as long as she possibly could, fighting off the evening chill. Then, she would have Sean over as well, sometimes, until the passionate snogging sessions turned into more dramatic arguing ones and she had to put an end to it. Luckily for them, though, she thinks Mr and Mrs Clifford who lived next door were both too old and too deaf to ever hear anything. Her mum sits down next to her, the warmth of her body familiar by her side.

"You didn't have to get argumentative with him," she says, her blue eyes set on her. When she was younger, Martha remembers, she had this really long, soft, straight blonde hair that went down to her lower back, flowed graciously over her shoulders, never knew what to do with Martha's messy curls. After Dad passed away, she cut it short and that was that, really.

"I wasn't being argumentative," she rolls her eyes. "I was –"

Her mother cuts her off with a laugh, shaking her head like she always did whenever she'd catch her sneaking back into the house in the middle of the night. 'We were studying,' Martha would say – _we_ : Sean and her. Always Sean. Her mum would laugh and shake her head at her, standing in the doorway in the dark.

'You've got your father's brains,' she'd say, extending her hand and confiscating Martha's keys. 'But I'm not stupid, either.'

"It's funny," her mum says, now, after a beat, her fingers joining on top of her knees. Her nails are long and painted with a French manicure in immaculate shades of pink and white in a way that Martha has never been able to maintain hers. "I always wonder if you'd have gone into this job if it weren't for him and the way he was with you." She stops, glancing at Martha. "He was always pushing, and pushing, and pushing every time you two had a conversation. Loved playing devil's advocate to everything you said like it was a game I could never understand between the both of you."

_Yeah,_ Martha thinks, nodding. _It was_. She knew it at the time, even through her angry, angst-filled teenage years. Countless times, she'd spend weeks refusing to utter a single word to her mother, but never, ever stopped talking to him. They'd have endless, pointless arguments over anything and everything, over football line ups and whether or not her room needed tidying, and after her mum would forcibly separate them calling bedtime, he'd slip back in with her to continue the conversation where they'd left it off, talking and debating until the wee hours of the morning. When the cells in his brain turned into jelly and his stare went blank, they moved him to the guest room on the ground floor, because they could lock the door from the outside and make sure he wouldn't go wandering off in the middle night. She'd sneak down to him and sit by the side of his bed, holding his hand. He'd smile and say, 'Martha.'

"He loved you so much," her mum adds, quietly, a cold gust of wind sending goose bumps to her shoulders.

She nods, smiles as she feels her mum's hand against her leg. "I know."

Shutting her eyes for a bit, feeling the breeze against her skin, she listens to the distant hum of the cars in the background, the loud sounds of laughter rising out of the teenagers living on the ground floor next door, their short skirts and hoop earrings hidden under the trees of their backyard. She likes it here, likes Bolton. It's easy, familiar; she likes Jamie, and Mo, and the old ladies who've lived here eighty years and used to work at the mills, their tired fingers waving at her as they pass each other in the street. She likes it like a foreign place, she thinks, like that old seaside house you rent out every summer, build a lifetime's worth of sweet childhood memories in, but that ages without you for another fifty-one weeks of the year.

"Cristina called," her mum says suddenly, quietly, her eyes set on her.

"The real estate agent?"

"Yes," her mother says, breathes. "The couple I told you about? They got their loan. We're signing at the end of the month."

When her mum had told her about them, a few days back, she sounded excited, thrilled, happy; Martha pretended she didn't already know. She guesses that's what Cristina had wanted to talk about, then: she'd missed a few calls, days ago, hadn't yet bothered returning them.

Her mum is silent for long while, watching her. "What are you doing, Martha?" she finally asks, her head tilting to face her.

She thinks about it - thinks about it for a long moment, like she always does. "I quit," she admits in the end, looking down at her hands. She should have said it sooner, maybe, just couldn't find the words. She looks at her mother now, and: "Again," Martha observes, sighing after she stays silent for a bit. "You don't look surprised."

A smile moves the corner of her lips. "Again, you never come here without a good reason."

Her mouth twists uncomfortably, fingers anxiously tapping the fabric of her jeans. She'd waited twelve weeks, for fuck's sake, had waited until they told her it was safe. It took her another two weeks to tell her she'd lost it, didn't quite know what the words were.

"What happened?" Her mum says, now, about work, and it feels different and similar at the same time.

"It all got to be a bit too much."

"Was it about Sean?"

She's silent, startled, thought her mum didn't –

"I'm not stupid," she adds, with a smile. "I read the papers, Martha."

"I couldn't not defend him. He's innocent, I couldn't just leave him –"

"Honey, that boy –"

She shakes her head, closes the discussion, fiddles with her fingers, really wishes she could light a cigarette. "It wasn't just him, anyway. It was – I lost someone, in Chambers. Cancer. He mattered to me," she pauses, bites her lip. "It changed a lot of things. At work and outside."

There are many things she doesn't tell her mum. She constantly chews mint gums and puts on perfume so that she doesn't know about the smoking, doesn't tell her about the cases she loses or the death threats she gets from angry clients because she doesn't want her to get worried. _Everything's fine,_ she always says, just like she did again a few weeks ago, when she called after Clive had left, after he brought her home and mended her wounds and promised that it really wasn't her fault. Under the shower, she set the water so hot it almost burnt her skin, trying to get rid of the nightmares that clogged her brain. _I just wanted to see how you were, actually,_ she told her mum on the phone, faking a smile, quickly wiping tears off her cheeks. What happened in that bar that night following their argument is a secret that'll die with Clive, she thinks.

"I'm sorry," her mum says, nodding. There's empathy in her voice and after all, Martha guesses, she of all people would know what loss means. "You know, I never asked because it didn't feel like I should, after you lost it, but was he, er, is that why he mattered to you, because –"

Of course, Martha bursts out laughing at that, something real and loud, a strand of hair falling over her face. "Billy? God, _no_ ," she says and a sigh of relief escapes her mother's lips. It's funny actually, her mum's the second person who's insinuated she was sleeping with Billy since he died, she wonders what that means about human nature's belief in platonic friendships. "No, no, he was just – a very close friend. Someone I cared about," she adds, clarifying.

"Okay," her mum says, nodding, with a smile. "So, what do you want to do, now?"

She doesn't know, admits that much, looking down at her knees. She loves the law, she says, still but: "I feel like I've burnt a lot of bridges, I can't go back. I don't even want to," she sighs.

"So? You'll go back to London, find somewhere else."

She sighs, shakes her head. Hears Clive again as he said: 'If you put the word out that you were looking to jump ship…' at the airport. "It's not that simple," she says. "The bar's all about loyalty and Shoe Lane's always been family."

She only realises what she said a bit too late, when she glances at her mum and sees the look on her face. She opens her mouth to amend her words, say she didn't mean it like that, but - "There's work family and then there's real family, Martha," her mum says, her tone curt and abrupt. "You know, again, I never asked but, you've never thought of, er, trying again, after – with whoever it was, I mean -"

She raises an eyebrow at her mum's uncomfortable sigh, smiles. If there's one thing she's really never thought of, actually, it's that. "No," she says shaking her head. When her mum looks surprised, she says: "It's complicated."

"Everything always is with you, isn't it?"

A quiet sigh escapes her lips as she looks away and down to the garden of their house, the Hortensia her mum planted in bushes in the back. She misses home, sometimes, misses her and Dad, and the novelty of clear blue skies and climbing trees. She thinks of Jo, though, and Jamie, and even Evershed, how different their lives are from hers. She doesn't like the things that happened in her life, recently, but it doesn't mean she doesn't like it.

She could say it. Could say _I want to buy the house, I want to move back here,_ but for some reason, just like she couldn't ask Billy to book another appointment, or like she couldn't say the words back to Clive at his silk party, the decision feels already made, there, as per her inaction. She used to think of it as the easy way out, saw time passing and the weakest response, but maybe that's not what it is, because didn't she say it was a different kind of power, after all, to standby?

"You need to go home, Martha," her mother says. "You know that, right?" and when she hears "home," she hears London and it's funny, really, how clearly she instinctively seems to know that, where her heart is, the way she can't help but think of this house as her parents'. She knows why her mum is moving, deep down, knows it isn't as much about _Roy_ as it is about this place not really being entirely hers either, anymore. "I mean, I love it when you're here," she says. "And with the move and everything, I really hope you stay until next Sunday but – this isn't your life. It's not what you want, what you've always wanted. Whatever you do, I don't want you to come back. We've both already left this behind."

Her eyes shut, for a second. She guesses she's right, deep down, doesn't know what she wants, anymore, but being here is not it. She's always been content, here, and has always wanted more than that. For some reason, _complicated_ has always drawn her to the moon and back.

When her mum heads back inside after the landline goes off and she runs to catch it (landline equals telemarketer in Martha's mind so she never answers, but supposes you never really know), she takes her phone in her hand, her fingers hovering over the glass screen.

_Hey,_ she writes, text filling out the blank space below the older blue and grey bubbles they've exchanged. They date back from a couple weeks ago, feel like a million years ago, really. _I'll be home next Sunday._

It's a good five minutes after she hits send when her phone chirps again. She holds her breath sliding the message open: it's a face, a yellow face with a smile and eyes in the shape of circumflex accents, cheeks red. It's that, and _okay_ , he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] "It's apparently like wanting to see someone else open a Christmas present more than you want to open your own": this wonderful, wonderful, flawed and yet perfect description of love was written was by a friend of mine (you can find her under the pen name Orbythesea) in a TGW fic called Vices. I absolutely wanted to use it here and thus need to stick to her universe and have Will Gardner say it, because you know. This sort of sprung a couple of three-sentence-fics in my head building on this little moment, both from Will and from Martha's POV, which you can find on my Tumblr (same alias) if you fancy. Just click on the 'Tumblr Fic Masterlist' tab, you'll find them there under 'Love' and 'Sorry'. 
> 
> [2] Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis, of course.


	6. vi

 

_Heavy words are hard to take and under pressure, precious things can break._

_How we feel is hard to fake, so let's not give the game away._

Please Don't Say You Love Me – Gabrielle Aplin

.

.

On Thursday nights, the kids on the street below throw beer bottles to the ground. They shatter against the concrete, a distant sound that slips past the neighbourhood's windows, shakes her out of her nightmares.

.

She hates them, the nightmares. There's Clive and there's Harriet, and Billy, and Sean, and her parents, and nothing ever makes sense. She's never been good at remembering them, wakes up in cold sweat with her heart hammering against her chest and seldom understands why. Nothing in that world is ever as she remembers it to be.

She thinks she likes the memories more. They're haunting, they keep her awake after Clive hangs up the phone and she lies in her childhood bedroom staring up at the ceiling but at least, they're _real_. She's in bed, looking at her mobile when the numbers change to midnight, the date moving forward in front of her eyes. She remembers Billy, last year, and all the years before, the way she'd come into Chambers to find flowers on her desk, lilies and gerberas in orange and red tones like a ritual, a quick note in his messy handwriting.

'You shouldn't have,' she'd tell him, walking into the clerk's room. It would always be early, quiet, still.

'The love that I feel for you, Miss,' he'd start, smile as she'd cross the distance to pull him into a tight hug, hear him whisper words in her ear. 'It grows every minute of every year –'

It's Friday morning, the 5th of September, when the clock hits midnight and _make a wish_ , she thinks.

She thinks it's on days like this that she'll always miss him.

.

If morning were Billy's, nights were always more of Clive's area of expertise. He even had a name for it, she remembers, used to call it his _back to school_ project; she'd roll her eyes at him but sometimes, he'd succeed in charming her into dancing with him, – or for him, she doesn't know – taking her hand in his.

She wants to say that this year is no different, but this year is so different. This year is a posh restaurant and romantic candles, and white tablecloths, and _very_ expensive wine. It fits her dress, his suit. There are multiple kinds of forks and knives by the side of her plate – it's not that she doesn't know what's the use of each, per se, it's more that it's the kind of thing she has to _remember_ rather than wait to naturally come to her. They're in Manchester – her city, of sorts – and yet, it feels more like his comfort zone than hers. On the one hand, she _likes_ this; it feels elaborate, _official_ , but on the other, well –

"You look nervous," he says, smiling, clinging his wine glass against hers. She's supposed to drive back to London in a couple of days but he came to get her from her mum's this afternoon anyway, hooted the horn of his car bloody havoc in front of her house; a scene that will most likely feed the neighbourhood's gossip for years to come. It's a bit odd, talking to him now when they hadn't talked in two weeks before she sent him that text; it makes her remember how much she'd missed him.

She takes a sip – the wine's good, she'll give him that - lies. "I'm not."

"Yes, you are," he smirks, holds her gaze. "Like when you're about to stand up defending a client who looks very, _very_ guilty."

Her fingers hover, toying with her glass. "All my clients look guilty," she pauses. "That's why they're on trial."

He smiles, glances back at her. "Do I look guilty to you?"

_Yeah,_ she thinks,or maybe she is. On nights like these, he'd take her to the pub and get her drunk on red wine and laughter, sometimes buying her chips on the way home. She kissed him, once – not the first time they kissed, but the first she initiated, - only meant for it to be a quick peck on his lips to shut him up. Instead, she felt herself responding to his touch, her body close to his at the back of the pub, shielded from casual onlookers. Her phone went off in her pocket, loud shrills of that one Nokia ringtone; the mobiles that could barely take any pictures.

'This is a bad idea,' he said, parting, but didn't move.

She pressed the silent button and her phone began vibrating instead; she felt it against her leg. 'Yes,' she breathed.

.

He drinks a sip; she watches as the liquid travels down his throat, his neck slightly moving as he swallows. "I'd kill to see you fight my corner." A breath. "Not literally, I mean –"

"Can we please not go there?"

She speaks fast, without thinking, and it lasts a millisecond but she sees a flash of hurt clouding his eyes. It's subtle but he leans further from her, against the back of his chair. He's trying to give her space and she feels bad about it, for a moment: this wasn't what she meant, she wants to explain, it's just that –

She was seventeen the last time someone she cared about made a similar joke. His arm was around her shoulder and the covers were drawn over them to avoid having to turn on the heat (they were in his room, at home, his mum's council estate flat; there wasn't any money to pay for, well, _anything_ , really). The bed was small; they had to squeeze in – proper grown-ups, now - his skin against hers. 'So, law, uh?' he said, smiled close to her face.

She nodded, somewhat shyly, didn't know for sure, didn't know if she'd get in, didn't think –

'So, you want to be a lawyer?'

She laughed, her hand in his hair. 'Maybe?' she admitted, glancing away. 'I don't know, I mean –'

She felt his mouth against hers; he tasted like beer and the crisps they'd had for lunch. 'Nah, I like it,' he said against her lips, pulling her on top of him. She beamed at him, like people in love in the movies. 'You can defend me.'

.

She doesn't say that, _now_ , of course, doesn't think bringing that up will get either of them anywhere. "I just feel like with the great food and fancy restaurant, you're expecting us to _talk,_ " she concedes, instead, glancing away again. "Me to give you answers I don't have."

Her hand rests on the table and she feels his fingers dance over hers until he takes them back, just long enough to make her blood rush in her throat. "That's not why I'm here."

"Why's that, then?"

It's funny, really, because he hasn't said it, yet. She knows why he's here – they _both_ know why he's here (because he's a good person and he _never_ forgets), - but when she went down to meet him on the street in front of her mum's house this afternoon, he said he was 'passing,' and had a conference to attend on 'the notion of substance in tax law' in Manchester, tomorrow at 8am. She's not sure if such a thing really exists or if he just made it up but she's got to admit she laughed, just a bit.

He leans in, whispers: "I'm hoping for a similar conclusion to both first and second date."

She laughs, bites her lip. "Is this a second date?"

He looks around him. The restaurant is showy, high-end, it's almost exactly what she had in mind when she laughed at the idea of them going on a date, last time around. "I don't know, what do you think?"

"See?" she breathes, pouting. "I'm not sure I like the guy that much."

He smiles, holds her gaze; she barely dares to move. "You forget I can tell when you're lying, Martha Costello," he says, finally breaking eye contact, stealing a sip of his wine.

She grins behind the rim of her glass, raising an eyebrow at him. "Can you?"

.

(The truth is: she does, though. Like him, that is. She's liked him for a while, really, ever since they were twenty-two and he laughed at her as she precariously stood on a chair trying to grab one of the books on the top shelf, refusing to ask him for help.)

.

Over dinner, over time, she relaxes. Doesn't know if it's the wine or Clive's company but the vibe changes, little by little; it reminds her more and more of their first date before he gave her an ultimatum and made her choose, reminds her of the fact that they don't always have to be so goddamn serious all the time.

She asks their waitress for a glass of water and he teases her about her accent (which he claims has gotten stronger over the last few weeks she spent here). "Thank God you're coming home Sunday," he says, as his foot _accidentally_ brushes against her leg under their table for the _third_ time. "Another week of this and I wouldn't be able to understand you at all. I swear, it's even worse than when you're very, very drunk," he laughs, sitting back in his chair when she shifts out of reach.

She doesn't want to laugh, not really, but still, somehow, she does, mostly because to be fully honest, she knows it's kind of true. "That's what I _really_ sound like, Clive," she tells him and he throws her curious look, pouring the both of them more wine. They've had their starters, now, are waiting for the mains and she's finally starting to fully breathe.

"What do you mean?" he asks, setting the bottle back on the table.

She smiles, explains. The story is the one of when she was twenty-two and moved to London, when people told her that she'd be taken more seriously if she got rid of it, as though she was ever, _ever_ going to fit in. 'Posh it up a bit,' Tom Evershed had advised in the few days before she started her pupillage and it sort of became second nature after a while, slowing down the pace of her speech. The thing is, though – the thing that Clive has of course _repeatedly_ pointed out to her before, - is that it tends to come back, whenever she stays at home a bit too long or drinks a bit too much. She remembers one Christmas party at Shoe Lane – they were younger, a couple of years at the bar at most - she drunkenly ranted to him about a case she was working on and he just looked at her and teased: 'can you repeat that, please?'

She literally thought she was going to punch him in the face.

Clive looks at her as she speaks; she sees their waitress looming into her field of vision when she stops talking. Their food is served – salmon and potatoes for her, some sort of vegetable lasagne she's really not interested in for him - and they're silent for minute until the girl goes away to tend to another table.

"I didn't know that about you," Clive says, catching her look.

She laughs, cuts into her salmon and tries a bit – _okay, the food is very good_ , she thinks, she'll also give him that. "Didn't know I wanted to punch you in the face? You'd think that was the reason you said that in the first place –"

He smirks, shakes his head, cuts into his own dish. "Nah. That you tried to, er, posh yourself up, let's say."

_Ah, that_ , she thinks. She smiles, holds his gaze. "You don't know everything about me, Clive," she says, her voice lower than usual, arcing an enigmatic eyebrow at him, biting her lip for effect.

His eyes stay fixed on her for as long as he possibly can before he finally blinks, quickly looks away. She doesn't think she'll ever get over the effect she seems to have on him. "Fuck, Marth," he swears, under his breath.

.

_Yes,_ she had agreed, back when their mobiles couldn't take pictures, so she had walked back into Chambers, alone. Stood outside and leaned against the railing for a smoke as she waited, heard Billy exiting the building behind her. 'Waiting for your ride, Miss?' he asked, standing next to her. She smiled, puffed out into the night.

'Yes.'

He shifted closer to her, her left arm touching his right. 'Any special plans with young Jerôme? Any sweet loving weekend away in paradise?'

She rolled her eyes but smiled anyway, breathing in another drag. She had had to introduce them to Jerôme last year – after two years, it felt like the right thing to do, - so she'd taken him as her plus one to Shoe's Lane's last Christmas party, felt his hand in hers as they navigated around the crowd and she smiled politely, tried to partake in just the right amount of _sucking up_ to get Billy off her back. Jerôme had charmed everyone - of course, he had, with his fancy suit and smart ways - Alan couldn't stop talking about him for days. Clive had actually joked that their Head of Chambers might just have a crush on her boyfriend.

'You're not even in a real relationship,' he hadn't failed to point out the following Monday, though, bugging her as she tried to get some reading done before court. 'You just like him for his French _glamour_ and fancy accent.'

She'd laughed, shaken her head at him. 'First, he's not French, he's Belgian,' she'd said and Clive had shrugged in a way that said _same difference_. 'Second, what do you know about relationships, anyway, Clive?'

He'd ignored her, leaned in, looking into her eyes and declared: 'Ay luve you, Maarta,' in a frankly pretty terrible rendition of Jerôme's accent. She'd rolled her eyes at him, pretended to focus on the papers in front of her. Her pen had felt heavy in her hand; she'd kept turning the top back and forth between her fingers, the tip going in and out.

'Get off, Clive.'

Eight months later, she was kissing him in the back of a pub while Jerôme waited for her at home with champagne and roses, and _love_ , and Billy whispered in her ear: 'you can't help who you fall in love with, Miss.'

.

It's halfway through their main course when she musters up the courage to ask him how things are in Chambers. She's not sure she wants to know, to tell the truth, because from the dark circles under his eyes and the tension that seems to be forever knotted in his shoulders, she can't imagine it's going great but she wants to be a good person, so she asks anyway.

"Things are good," he says, looking down at his plate. He chews on a piece of lasagne, quickly swallows it. "Busy."

She sighs, trying to catch his glance, insists. "Clive…"

"Can we just not –" he starts and she can't help but scoff a little. She guesses she's not the only one who doesn't want to talk after all, is she?

He looks at her and sighs, shaking his head for the briefest moment.

"It's just –" he starts, fiddling with his fork. Dents face up, dents face down, a few times, then: "I don't want to argue with you and with work it's what we always do. Now, there's us, and there's work, and to tell you the truth, I kind of like them separate."

She smiles, cocks an eyebrow at him. "Us?"

Behind his smile, he looks like he's just realising what he said, right then, and chooses not to utter another word. She doesn't know why, exactly, doesn't know if he spoke a bit too fast or if he doesn't think she's ready to hear what he has to say but in a way, she's thankful, because truthfully, she doesn't think she is. She likes this, likes watching him, likes eye-fucking him, and genuinely fucking him, but doesn't know if –

Billy used to call them 'the kids,' she recalls, used to talk about 'them' like an item, like they only came in pairs, playing rock, paper, scissors - children on a playground. She tells him about it, asks him if he remembers – he does, - pushing her food around her plate. Sometimes, she wishes he were still there. Sometimes, she catches herself wondering if he's still watching over them and it's stupid, really, because she can't even think of a time where she ever believed in that kind of bollocks but -

Clive's hand gently finds her forearm; it makes her look up at him. He smiles, something sad and torn in his glance, his fingers gentle against her skin. "Hey," he says, calling her attention back to him. "I'm here."

She smiles, too, shakes her head. _Yeah,_ she thinks, she guesses that he is.

.

They have fun, the rest of the evening. Oddly, she thinks, they talk about things that couples do. She learns stuff that she didn't know about him and, she guesses, he learns stuff that he didn't know about her, either. He gets her to admit that she _did_ end up cheating on Jerôme in the end – not with him, though, snogging isn't cheating, she argues and: "Marth, there's snogging and _snogging,"_ he fires back, like she's supposed to know what the fuck that means. When he claims he's never cheated on anyone before, she scoffs, almost chokes on her wine with laughter.

His argument, she understands, is that you can't cheat when you're never really in a relationship in the first place, which she guesses is a valid point but: "I'm not sure the girls in question would agree," she points out, smirking against the rim of her glass. She learns about Penelope Cooper, too, when she asks: "First?" with a telling smile on her face.

"First what?" he counters, because of course, he does, and she shakes her head, laughs for a bit.

"There's only one context in which the word _first_ as a question is enough, Clive. Answer it, don't stall."

And to his credit, he does. So, yeah, "Penelope Cooper," he says, whom he apparently met on a summer field trip to Brighton when he was seventeen. With a name like that, Martha thinks to herself, she feels a sudden urge to Google her and figure out what kind of housewife she's become. He throws the question back before she has a chance to, though, - of course, he does, - and she wonders if she should lie or not say anything for a bit, in light of recent events more than anything else, really, but then what the hell, she thinks, he's probably got it figured out already.

"Sean," she says and granted: it may not have been the best decision she's ever made, all things considered but Clive nods, anyway, expected. "14."

At that, she sees _him_ choke on his wine, rolls her eyes. "Shit. Bit young, no?"

She laughs, a bit loud for the restaurant they're in, their neighbours at the next table throw her a nasty look. "Bit judgmental now, are we, Clive?"

They play that game for the rest of their meal until the waitress comes back to take their orders for desserts, quick questions and answers fired back and forth but it's funny, really, how she finds that everything is tainted by genuine curiosity rather than animosity. She finishes her wine a couple of minutes later and finally decides a trip to the ladies is way overdue, grabs her lipstick from her bag to reapply it in front of the mirror. When it touches her lips, she smiles to herself and realises that she looks _good_ , happy. _Make a wish,_ she thinks, again, blowing air that fogs up the mirror.

.

They get back to his hotel room a little before midnight; the place is fancy, a high tower with a view. She feels mildly out of place trying to pretend that she isn't, the kind of old habits that die hard. The room is nice, spacious, one of the higher floors; she watches out the window as she lays her bag down by the couch.

He sits on the bed, gently tugs at her hand to pull her closer. She stands between his legs, his hands settling on her hips. "I wasn't sure you'd come," he admits, his fingers absentmindedly playing with the hem of her dress.

She smiles, her hand against his shoulder. "I didn't know _you_ would."

He smirks at that, his fingers more purposeful now, trailing up the skin of her thigh. "That's kind of the point of surprises, Marth," he points out.

"Yeah, and you had to _surprise_ the whole neighbourhood in the process."

"Hmhm," he hums, one of his hands leaving her hip to curl at the back of her neck, his thumb drawing circles against her cheek. "Come here," he whispers, pulling her face down towards him. Before their lips can touch, though, he leans back slowly towards the mattress until she loses her balance and laughs, toppling on top of him.

She missed him, she realises, missed the touch of his skin, his voice, the way he teases her, both in and out of bed, how comfortable his shoulder feels when she's lying against it. That night, he finally – _finally –_ unties the knot of her dress and she smiles against his skin, wonders out loud if he has any other surprises planned for the rest of the evening.

He hums in her ear as his hand travels up and down her bare back, her dress dangerously loose between them. "I don't know, I'm not quite sure you like them anymore."

His mouth travels under her ear down to her neck, his hand pressing her closer to him as she kicks off her heels and kneels on top of him; he holds her in place, though, she feels him smile against her skin when a moan escapes her mouth. "Depends what kind of surprise…" she whispers and feels him laugh under her.

His lips find hers then, nothing chaste or slow about _that_ kiss, his hands in her hair and his body against hers and the thing is: it really feels like falling, now, doesn't it?

.

She almost fell, once. Lost her balance, off the pavement, onto the road. Walked fast down a busy street, cars, and buses and bikes speeding by. The night was dark, illuminated by lampposts, she could hear him chasing her, rambling behind as he followed suit. She was wearing her favourite backpack, back then, it was black, with colourful pins and symbols on it, the kind of things you discreetly lift off the merch shop after gigs. She held the straps tight on each side of her chest; it was cold, windy, her fingers numb and red against the chill - it felt comforting to hold onto something. Truth was: she didn't want to run, just wanted him to leave her alone, wanted to get back to her books and the math test she hadn't studied for the day after tomorrow. 'Mar, listen to me,' he said, grabbing her wrist, making her stop in her tracks.

She kept silent, looked to the floor. The concrete was dark, chewing gums stuck and coming off slightly lighter than the ground. She didn't want to get angry, just -

'She's lying, all right? She's mental, and lying – for fuck's sake, you know this, Mar. I wouldn't –'

'You know what? I really don't, actually –'

'Mar,' he said, stepped forward. She kept her eyes trained down, could see his shoes inches from her trainers, the edge of the pavement and the zebra crossing next to them – 'Mar, look at me,' he spoke, lower, pleaded. His hand stroked her cheek; she felt his thumb against her chin. 'Look me in the eye.'

She didn't want to but he made her anyway, gently tugging her face up; they were close, so close his eyes were the only thing she could see. Dark, lit by streetlights and the buildings a few meters out, the headlights of the cars driving past. Her heart was racing, she remembers, like it was about to stop.

'I didn't do this.'

The thing was: there were a lot of things that Sean didn't do. Couldn't do, wouldn't do, could never do. She believed most of them. Believed him the same way she'd believed her Mum when she'd promised Dad was going to be all right, like she was the one desperately needing her to. It didn't feel like it mattered, though. _Had he? Had he not?_ wasn't the million pound question he seemed to think it was, as if the fact that he could be telling the truth was suddenly going to solve everything. She needed to go, walk away, get the train back to Bolton, see her father, she needed to –

'I've got to get home,' she said, shaking her head, shaking him off her, stepping onto the road. He followed her, his dark shoes contrasting with the white strips of the crossing. His hand found her lower back and she stood still, shut her eyes not to look at him, thinking _you've got to do this_ , thinking _I can't_ , thinking –

She felt his lips against hers, suddenly, rough and unapologetic, familiar and comfortable like they always were. They'd been doing this for years (four of them felt like a lifetime back then, like she hadn't ever been without him). Snogging in the back of pubs they weren't supposed to be in and on the rooftop of her neighbours' house, in his bed at his place when his mum went to rehab and they had the flat to themselves for weeks –

She responded instinctively, her hands in his hair in a very bad need of a cut, desperately wishing him to come with her, to get out of this place. She'd tried so hard, though, she needed to go off on her own, she needed to –

She heard the hoot of the bus before she felt the wind in her hair, loud, the kind of sound you only hear in genuine emergencies. Before she knew it she felt herself getting pulled onto the pavement, her feet tripping a bit over the edge, the side of the double decker only missing her shoulder by an inch. The air rushed around them in its wake, her heart pounding in her chest. She felt his breath in her ear when he spoke; he was holding one of her hands, the other still on the side of her hip.

'Shit,' he whispered and smiled, chuckled softly against her. 'I think I've died and gone to heaven.'

He stepped back to look at her and she felt herself responding to his smile, the corners of her mouth curving up against the tears that were crowding at the back of her eyes. 'I love you, Mar,' he said. It rang loud and real, in her ears.

'I –' she started. Her voice shook, eyes glistening. 'I can't,' she said, again, enunciating the syllables in her mouth, seeing the hurt in his eyes. The light turned green, finally, and: 'I can't do this anymore,' she told him, stepping away and back onto the road. She didn't even cry and when she left, he forgot to run after her.

.

She's back at the pub for this one.

It's the Crown, strangely, but she thinks that's just because it's the one she knows best. It comes to mind uninvited like memories of Billy and summer days, dropping the butt of her cigarette to the floor, shoving her wig into a plastic bag.

The music is loud – so, it's not _really_ the Crown, she thinks - the beat of the drums blaring on base speakers. She feels like she's falling, tumbling down.

It's a different song, not the right one.

The other one was repetitive, had a rhythm to it. This one's wilder, scarier, something she doesn't recognise. She tries to shift, shake her head, tries to –

_Sad to see you go, was sort of hoping that you'd stay,_ it says and it doesn't feel like she really has a choice, anyway. She hears a man's voice, feels someone holding her hand.

It's pitch darkness. It's often pitch darkness, in her head, these days, but they don't tell her why she can't see. She doesn't see him, doesn't see what he looks like, but she feels the wall against her back, smells beer, urine, excrements and body odour - public toilets. _Tequila_.

She can't move. Limbs are lumps and she can't breathe. She feels his hands around her neck and chokes. Tries to scream but the sounds are trapped, aren't leaving her mouth; she feels his body against hers, bare skin against her palms –

She tries to fight back, hit, push him away but he's holding her wrists and –

"Marth!" she hears, loud in her ears. Her eyes open with a start.

The room is dark around her, unfamiliar. She can tell because _now,_ she can _see_.

Her heart pounds in her chest. It's not her bed, not her sheets, not her room, not her walls, not –

"Shhh, you're all right."

The grasp on her wrists loosens and she feels a hand against her cheek. It's familiar, soothing, draws circles against her skin as the voice keeps softly shushing in her ear. "You're okay," it says. "It's okay," sometimes. "It's just a nightmare."

She recognises the voice as soon as she hears it - of course. Knows his frame, recalls the night before, recalls –

_Fuck,_ she thinks. Says so, too. Her fists are still clenched, against his skin; she relaxes them, flat on his chest. "Shit," she adds. Looks up at Clive, a reassuring smile on his lips. "Did I hit you?"

He lets out a soft chuckle, then, something quiet and smooth, drops a kiss at the top of her forehead. "Yeah, well, let's say that just because you had a right to slap me in the face once doesn't mean we should make a habit out of this," he jokes.

She doesn't laugh but she does smile, slightly, breathes in and out and finally dares to close her eyes again, for a second. "Sorry," she whispers as she shifts against him and lays her head back against his shoulder, her hand settling over his heart. His fingers smooth her hair; it slows down the rhythm of her heart.

He waits, unsure whether to speak; she can feel his uncertainty in the air. For better or for worse, Clive always speaks, though, in the end. "You okay?" he asks, quietly.

She doesn't answer, - doesn't know how - hears him swallow.

"You were saying 'no.'"

She feels herself freeze, then, her hand stilling against his skin. More embarrassing than waking up from a nightmare and trying to hit him in her sleep, she thinks, is him knowing _exactly_ what she was dreaming about. She looks up at him and knows that he does, right then, feels stupid – so, so stupid – and guilty, again, for getting drunk, calling _Billy_ and, well, _everything_ , really.

Her eyes shut, for a moment; she wishes she could pretend to go back to sleep and he'd believe her. Wishes she would, actually, fall back asleep and wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night anymore, wishes that he didn't have to know about this, either.

It doesn't happen every night. Sometimes, she's so tired that –

It shouldn't have happened tonight.

"Hey," he whispers. His mouth is so close to her skin that she feels his words brushing against her hair. "Look at me."

The corners of her mouth twist uncomfortably but she does it anyway, shifts and looks up, sees his eyes set upon hers in the dark.

"I wish I knew what was going on in your head," he confesses and: _you don't,_ she thinks, _you really, really don't_ but – "Marth," he says, repeats words she doesn't think he's ever stopped thinking. "It's not your –"

"- Fault," she finishes, pauses. "I know."

"Marth, have you tried talking to some-"

She shifts and kisses him, then, doesn't let him say it. Kisses him to shut him up, mostly, kisses him because she knows he's right, means well, because he's saying all of the things he should say and sometimes she wishes he wouldn't. Wishes she could hate him for it, kisses him because she –

She pulls away before she finishes the thought (or maybe, truth be told, she does finish the thought and that's exactly what makes her pull away), her lips remaining inches from his – there's a part of her that barely dares to look at him.

"Just stay here, okay?" she says. She doesn't want to talk, doesn't think she needs to talk, just wants his arms around her and a kiss the top of her head and for him to tell her that it'll all be okay, one day. "Don't go."

He smiles, nods, brushes a strand of hair off her face and holds her tight against him. "Do I look like I'm going anywhere?"

She laughs a bit, then, before falling silent again, breathes, closes her eyes, feels his chest rise and fall beneath her and: "You should go back to sleep," she whispers, after a while, remembering how exhausted he looked, earlier, thinking -

"I wasn't sleeping."

She thinks she sort of knew that, deep down, knew it from the fatigue in his voice, from the way he held her, too. She nods, against his skin, moves her head to look up at him. "Talk to me, then," she says.

"About what?"

"Anything," she chances and smiles when she feels him chuckle against her.

Surprisingly, he does, though. He tells her about his parents and about not knowing if they ever really loved each other. About going on a gap year to do fuck all, "learning French" in Bordeaux before he went to Oxford because he was too proud to admit he had no fucking clue what to do with his life. Her first year at uni, she confesses, biting her lip, she was attending full-time and pouring pints in two different bars to afford her rent and didn't know how to admit she had no idea of what she was doing, either. He tells her about turning forty and feeling like his priorities should shift but not knowing to what, exactly, and it makes her laugh, laugh so hard he teases her and whispers: "yeah, you're thirty-nine, _now_ , wait until next year," before kissing her lips.

He tells her about Chambers, too. Talks about not having set foot in the clerk's room for a whole two weeks because of Billy's ghost. Talks about CW's drinking, and the things that aren't going so great with Harriet. Even if he's got the decency not to blame her out right for any of the mess that they're in, she knows she's responsible, at least in part, for the damage control they've most probably had to do following her departure and her very public outburst. Then, there's the loss of Sean's case and the reputation hit and the dozen of cases that she dropped cold turkey, and the workload she's not taking in that she very well knows is bound to take its toll on him. A part of her wishes it were different, suddenly, the part of her that wanted him to be Head of Chambers from the moment he mentioned it, wanted to be as proud of him as she was when he got silk. Still, it wouldn't help if she apologised so she doesn't, just keeps listening, nodding silently, lying against him. She was cold, earlier, and put on his shirt, the cotton fabric now caressing her skin as he speaks, wraps an arm around her back. "I'm scared of ending up like Alan, you know?" he admits, his voice low, an articulate whisper. "Getting so caught up in office politics and paperwork that I won't even have time to practice anymore."

It's weak of her, maybe, but in that instant, she wishes she could go back, just five minutes, before they both stomped over every promise they'd ever made. She wishes she could forget, go back to London and walk into Chambers, play pretend like nothing ever happened.

"You won't," she says, instead, after a while, because it feels like the truth, like what she thinks, at least. "You were meant to do this," she tells him. "You'll pull through. You always do."

Maybe she's the one who doesn't, she thinks. Maybe, after all, she's the one who gives up. "You think that?"

She thinks _yes._ She thinks of him at twenty-three trying to get tenancy, a few years back, trying to get silk, thinks of Jody Farr and Sarah Stevens and _Sean,_ and –

"It was never me or Caroline, Clive," she says, shaking her head, her eyes closed, listening to the sound of her own voice, and the sound of his breaths in her ear. "I didn't even want it. It was always you," she adds and she means it, means _that_. She's not stupid, knows what her strengths are. Passion, dedication, a strong sense of justice, not fitting in. But he does: fit in. And that's a good thing, too. He's funny and caring and is a good diplomat, and wants to do things _right,_ knows how to make people like him. (And she really does, like him.) "I wish you could have done it without hurting Billy or forcing me out," she tells him, still, because she wants him to know that, wants him to know that he did wrong, there. "But you did need Harriet on your side and she never really gave you a choice, did she?"

He's silent for a very long moment, after she speaks, to the point that she actually wonders if he fell asleep, after all, looks up at him to cross his gaze. "I missed you," he finally says and she's got to admit it warms her heart a bit as she smiles, chuckles softly when she teases him.

"You missed the sex," she argues and feels his laughter shake his body under hers. After a bit, she feels his hand moving from her arm to reach under her shirt – his shirt, - up the side of her leg.

"Talking of which," he whispers, shifts them so as to get better access to trail his fingers up the inside of her thigh. "Since we're both awake …"

She laughs against his lips when he kisses her slowly, softly, sighs against her skin. He shakes her out of her nightmares, too, she realises, and it feels better than bottles of beer thrown against the pavement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] The song from Martha's dream is Do I Wanna Know? by Arctic Monkeys.


	7. vii.

vii.

.

_We are searchlights; we can see in the dark._

_We are rockets, pointing up at the stars._

_(…)_

_We are problems that want to be solved._

_We are children that want to be loved._

What About Us? – P!nk

.

.

The next time she opens her eyes, it's to the sound of the shower running. The bed is cold and empty next to her; it takes her a moment to remember where she is. It's already light outside, not sunny but light, the clouds almost white hiding the sun in the sky.

She yawns, sits up a bit to inspect the room as the shower stops. There is a pair of dirty trainers at the entrance by the door, a fitted rain jacket draped over the armchair, the alarm clock reads 9:37 –

Clive comes out of the bathroom just then, his hair still wet and a towel wrapped around his waist. Her gaze trails down his frame (she doesn't think she would be this obvious about it were her brain functioning normally, but then again, she's never really been subtle in the morning) and _not bad_ , she catches herself thinking.

"Done looking?" he teases with a smile; she blushes a bit.

"You went running," she says, then, trying to ignore him, her voice groggy and sleepy. She rolls over to her side, her back to the window, curling her knees up a bit under the covers, closing her eyes again.

"Yep," he says like that's a normal thing to do before 9 on a Saturday morning, and crawls back in bed next to her. She groans at the droplets of water that hit her skin as a result and at the fact that she's pretty sure she's been paying a good fifty quid a month for the last five years for a gym she's barely ever set foot in, likes to think of it as the price of her punishment for not going.

"Didn't you have a boring conference to get to?" she mumbles as she feels his hand on her arm – it's oddly warm and cosy.

"And yet, I've made the ultimate sacrifice and decided to stay here with you instead," he says and kisses her, then, a long peck on her lips. Opening her eyes, she realises he's staring right back at her. "Come on, sleepyhead," he whispers, getting back up, pointing to the nightstand behind him. "I got you coffee."

.

They walk around Manchester all day. He's driving home that night so they leave his bags at the hotel and try to make the most of their time in the city. There's nowhere in particular to be, really, but for some reason, he holds her hand on the way. It's odd, at first, kissing him in a place where no one knows them, kissing him when she wants to, rather than to make a statement. It feels strange, somewhat couple-y.

Early afternoon, they stumble upon some sort of fair and he beats her _twice_ at a game that entails throwing darts at balloons and popping as many of them as possible in a limited amount of time and she's not sure what irritates her most: the fact that he won _twice,_ or the fact that her irritation seems to set off uncontrollable fits of laughter in him. She's thankful when her phone goes off just as he offers her to re-game ("you're such a sore loser, Marth," he tells her) and she steps away to take the call, leaning against a tree nearby as he stays at the game stand.

She only rolls her eyes about two seconds into the call, when she realises it's a) her mum, and b) she's not happy. "You didn't come home last night," she observes, passively-aggressively letting the awkward pause that follows her words sink in.

"No," she says, shaking her head. She didn't say she would, though. She said the exact opposite, actually, when her mum caught her wrist in the stairs after Clive got to Bolton and she went back in to pick up an overnight bag, feeling her mother's inquiring look boring down onto them from her bedroom window all the while they were talking in the street.

'Who's that?' her mother had said, in the staircase.

'Clive.'

'Clive?'

'I'm going out' she'd said and _twenty years later,_ felt the utmost satisfaction at finally being able to get away with it. 'Don't wait up.'

"Well, where are you?" Her mother asks, now, and _God,_ there's a _reason_ why she left home at eighteen, she remembers.

"Manchester."

"And, do you intend to come home?"

She rolls her eyes, sighs. "Yes. Tonight. Mum, I'm thirty-ni–"

"I worry, alright?" Her mum snaps, interrupting. "You're my _daughter_ and frankly, _you_ showed up on my doorstep, so _I_ get toworry. You don't have children, you wouldn't understand," she says and _okay,_ that's not a very fair argument, Martha thinks. "I mean, no offense but you haven't been doing all _that great_ , lately, so forgive me for asking questions when you go off with some man I don't know and don't come home in the morning and also to be honest with you, you haven't really evidenced the best _taste_ in men in the past so –"

She doesn't get to hear the rest of her mother's wonderful demonstration because she takes the phone away from her ear and lets it rant into the air for a few more seconds before she finally hears silence on the other end of the line. She smiles, though, when she speaks, thinks she does _understand_ , actually, thinks –

"I'm fine, Mum," she says, her glance leaving her feet to settle on Clive as she sees him typing on his phone a few yards away. He stops, though, when he hears her speak again, doesn't look at her. She hopes that's a good thing. "I'm happy," she says, closing her eyes.

Moments later, she's kissing his lips before he takes her hand back in his and asks: "What did she want?"

"She thought you'd kidnapped me," she jokes, hears him laugh next to her.

.

They're in Costa ordering coffee when it happens. _It_ is the thought that crosses her mind uninvited, the pointed question her mother asked last week, the thing that smells like a rose and that she doesn't want to name.

They stand at the till, she hands out her debit card to pay for her Americano as Clive tells her something she doesn't really pay attention to and looks to the end of the bar to her right. There is a young woman standing there, leaning against the counter as she holds her kid's hand – early-thirties, long golden hair that cascades down her back; she's objectively beautiful, the kind of beautiful that only exists in books, like she doesn't even know she is. She knows it's a bit rude but for some reason Martha can't keep herself from staring a bit, even as she puts her debit back into her wallet and they move to the side to let the guy behind them order; to the point that she realises she's made Clive stare, too.

His look follows hers and he smiles, lightly squeezing her forearm. The mum doesn't notice them staring but the kid does, of course, - kids notice that kind of thing, she muses – and because it's weird and unusual and because he's about four, pulls his tongue at them. She looks away, slightly awkward, but Clive laughs next to her and, to her surprise, pulls a face at the kid, too.

The kid laughs. Naturally, wholeheartedly, like children do. Pulls his tongue again.

Alerted by the laughter, this time, his mother sees him do it, looks at him, looks at them. "Oh, no, don't do that!" she says, looking at her son, then: "Sorry," to the both of them, apologetic.

Martha opens her mouth but Clive is quicker, smiles back at her. "Oh, no, that's all right," he says, shaking his head, too. He takes a step forward and squats down to face the kid, grinning. The kid looks at him with wide-open eyes, a mixture of fear at having done something his mum didn't want him to do and interest at Clive. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Leo," he says, his voice high-pitched, pouting a bit.

"Well, hi, Leo," Clive says, slightly moving closer as some guy tries to get through to a table behind them. "I'm Clive," he adds and takes the kid's hand in his, shakes it slightly before letting go. Leo stays silent for a bit, his eyes fixed on Clive. "So, you like pulling faces, huh?" Clive asks, after a bit, smiles. "Can you do that one?" he says and pulls another face, twisting his mouth and framing his eyes with his fingers like glasses.

Leo laughs again and this time, so does his mum, smiling at Clive and at her; Martha finds herself smiling back, the corners of her mouth curving up. The boy attempts the face in return, and it's funny, really, the way his little hands attempt to mimic Clive's. It's not a full success, yet, so Clive starts giving him instructions to make it better, showing him how to make perfect circles with his thumbs and forefingers.

Leo's mum throws an amused look at Martha over the boys' heads and she thinks that's what, in the end, makes the boy finally notice her. He stares over Clive's shoulder for a long while, not really paying attention to what he's saying, anymore. Confused, Clive turns around and sees what – who – the kid is looking at, smiles.

"Leo, this is Martha," he says and the kid smiles, shyly, then looks to the floor.

"Hi," he says, his eyes still averted on his shoes, sheepish.

"Hi Leo," she says, cocking her head to the side to see him better, smiling but staying put, standing a step behind Clive, just waving her hand at him. She has her coffee in her hand, steals a sip of hot liquid.

Leo finally dares to glance up and his eyes fall on Clive again; his mum smiles behind him. He looks at Clive, the corner of his mouth twisting with something he's not sure is okay to say and sighs. "She very pretty," he tells Clive like he's the only one who can hear and all three adults suddenly burst out laughing, the boy going red in the cheeks. His mum opens her mouth to reprimand but sees Clive shake his head, grinning.

"Yeah, she is," Clive agrees, nodding and smiling at the kid, his voice reassuring. "She's very smart, too," he adds and the kid's glance travels from him to Martha, who smiles and shakes her head, then back to Clive.

The boy frowns, pouts. "Smarter than you?" he asks, looking up with question marks in his eyes, genuinely interested.

Clive turns slightly and throws her a glance before he speaks again, nodding at Leo. "Lots," he says, Leo's mother smiling up at her.

The boy looks very impressed at that, looks from Clive to Martha back and forth a few times before finally, a thought seems to occur to him. "Can she pull faces too?" he asks and makes everyone laugh, again.

When their laughter quiets down, Martha hears his mum say: "Okay, I think that's it, Leo," smiling, amicable, but firm, pulling at the little boy's hand. Leo nods, and "say goodbye, Leo," she adds, so he does, because that's what mum told him to do. He looks like he wishes they could play pulling faces longer but shrugs as his mother thanks the both of them and walks to the front door. Clive stands back up next to Martha, leans against the counter to finally reach for his coffee.

He looks at her and the grin on his face turns into something else, subtle; she sees it in his eyes when his glance falls onto hers; she clears her throat a bit. "I didn't know you could pull so many faces," she says, lightly, because it's the first thought that she actually _can_ voice that occurs to her, the others buried deep in an area of her brain she absolutely does not want to venture in.

"One of my many hidden talents," he jokes, taking a sip of his coffee and moving closer to her, slowly inching them towards the exit. They step out onto the street and as she walks next to him, nursing her coffee in her hands, she realises she can't stop looking at him, throwing sideway glances and wondering what the hell is going on in her head right now. Clive notices, after a while, throws her an amused look and asks: "What?" between two gulps of hot liquid.

"It's back," she says, fidgeting a bit.

"What?"

She steals a glance in his direction, smiles. "Your charm," she answers, because it's true, because it's scary, because when she thinks of them, sometimes, she thinks of them sitting on her couch that night and _it –_

Clive chuckles, takes her hand in his as they walk. "Well, I'm glad," he says, oblivious – or very good at pretending to be – and she bites her lip, shakes her head, shakes the thoughts that must not be named out of there.

.

They eat dinner together a couple of streets away from his hotel, the kind of place that sells fifteen quid burgers that come with salad as a side unless you specify otherwise. He offers to drive her back; she says she's fine taking the train (it's already 10pm and he's got to drive back to London, after all) so they argue back and forth a good five minutes until she caves, figures that if he really wants to, he might as well, after all. That and she sort of wants him to, in the back of her mind, doesn't really want him to leave.

When they get to Bolton, the house is dark, her parents' street only shaded by a couple lampposts. Out the window, she sees Jamie, standing at the corner typing away on his phone. She notices Mrs Flannigan, too, angrily dragging her dog away from the neighbour's petunias and the flickering lights behind a few people's curtains. She wonders what all of this must look like to him.

"There you are," he says, with his hand on her knee to nudge her out of her thoughts.

She looks into his eyes because she'll probably never be able to look through them and smiles. "Do you want to come in?"

.

After a bit of negotiation, they end up sitting on the roof outside so as not to wake her mum. Clive acts very dramatic when she makes him step over the gap between the two buildings, she laughs and calls him a wuss. They drink tea and _okay-just-one-glass_ wine that turns into a bottle emptied between the both of them and Clive's certainly not going anywhere, _now_. When he asks her to stay over, he does so by tiptoeing around the topic, claiming that he can't drive, claiming that she'll have to stay awake with him until he sobers up. She offers him shelter, promising her mum will be long gone to work by the time they wake up tomorrow and kisses him in the dead of the night.

There are no stars on cloudy evenings but she's always been a city girl anyway so her eyes follow the curve of roads, their street lamps and tiny windows, the headlights of cars heading home. They sit with a blanket thrown over the both of them as a shield from the wind; she warms herself up off the heat of his body. They're quiet, talk and fight the urge to sleep with stories and soft chuckles whispered in each other's ears. From their vantage point, she shows him the street on which her mum works, the corner shop where she had her first job, the house of her best friend when she was six and the school across the road. She tells him about the skirt of her school uniform and getting sent home more than once on the grounds that it rode three quarters up her thigh.

He laughs, shakes his head, drinking a sip of her wine. "Bit of teenage rebellion?" he says, smiling next to her.

She laughs, too, grins back at him behind the rim of her glass. "Something like that, yeah," she says, as he turns his head to look at her.

"I wish I'd known you back then."

She laughs, looking at him and the kind of teenager that he probably was, the kind of people he was probably friends with. _Yes_ , she may be a bit prejudiced and judgmental, here, but after all, he did go to _Harrow_. She hums, sipping on her wine. "Um, no, you don't," she declares, a playful twinkle in her eyes.

"Yeah?" he laughs, watching her. "Why not?"

"Irreconcilable differences, Clive."

He rolls his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, I was just," she pauses, trying to explain, looking for the right word. "Insufferable, really," she finishes, smirking as she shakes her head. "Dyed my hair black, boys, drinking, skipping school, coming home in the middle of the night: the whole thing," she adds as she sees him smile, after stealing a sip of his wine. "Rowing with my parents, teachers as well, to be honest, terrible grades – frankly, I don't really know why they never expelled me, I barely even showed up," she says as an afterthought.

When she glances at him, she finds his half-amused, half-disbelieving look set on her, a large mocking grin and an eyebrow raised.

"You dyed your hair black? I wish there were photographic evidence of this."

She laughs, drinking, shakes her head. "There is. Which you're never, ever going to see," she smirks, setting her glass on the floor, listening to him laugh, too.

"I'll make it my life's mission to," he jokes, clinging his glass against hers.

She remembers one late night in Chambers when she admitted to having gotten arrested once before, for smashing a beer bottle onto a police car protesting a wrongful arrest. He had laughed so hard tea had come out of his nostrils and _that explains so much,_ he had said as she rolled her eyes. Well, now, she guesses, telling him tales of her younger self, he knows the full-extent of her teenager rebel career.

"Once," she adds, grinning at him. "I even told my dad I wasn't going to partake in tests at school anymore, because they weren't fair to people who weren't good at taking tests," she laughs.

A loud chuckle escapes his mouth; it covers the hoot of a car down the street. "Flawless logic, Marth."

"Oh, shut up," she smiles, taking another swig of her wine.

"What happened, then?" Clive asks, frowning, after a while. "I mean, you went to university, you must have –"

"Gotten my shit together?" she asks, teasing, as he nods.

"Pretty much, yeah."

She sighs, leaning into him and smiles, the corners of her mouth twisting uncomfortably. "Dad got sick," she says, matter-of-factly, and _yeah,_ she thinks, _that's pretty much what happened. In a nutshell._

"Sorry."

"No, don't be, it's just –" she breathes, tries to find the words. This part is harder to tell, somehow, she has to force the words out of her mouth to keep telling him the truth. "He wanted me to go to university," she shrugs, finishing the last of her wine. "I don't know if he ever really understood I did, but –"

She feels Clive's arm circle around her, touches the side of her head to his, shortly, closes her eyes against the night breeze. She doesn't know what to add, really. There aren't many things that she can actually say to him about her Dad without lying, to tell the truth, about the promises she's made to herself, about never, ever allowing it to happen to her. There's a reason she defended Sarah Stevens, she remembers, a reason Clive does not need to know about.

Mechanically, she fishes for her pack of cigarettes, reaching behind her for her lighter and ashtray out of their hiding place under a brick. He arcs a curious eyebrow at her, looks at the brick, the hiding place, the mint gums next to it, then back to her.

She smiles, shrugs, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "I only smoke here," she explains, glancing back at the house. "She doesn't know."

"Your mum?" he asks throwing her a curious and disbelieving smile.

"What, you never hide anything from your parents?"

He laughs, shrugs, is about to crack a joke when -

"Sean was there, you know?" she whispers, honest, out of the blue, opens her eyes to look into his. Her fingers fidget with the pack: open, closed, open; she sets it down on the floor. "He was – no matter how shit things were at home, there was always a space for me at his place, and laughter and beers to get numb on," she breathes, shaking her head softly. "I was the one who failed him, not the other way around."

"What happened?" Clive asks. She doesn't know if it's the resigned tone in her voice, or the honesty with which she's finally, _finally_ , ready to talk to him about this, but he doesn't sound angry like he usually does when she mentions Sean, doesn't roll his eyes or sigh or even urge her on, just waits until she speaks, his hand softly massaging her shoulder. She smiles, sighs.

"I –" she starts, stops, explains. "When Dad got sick and I finally grew up, and made it out of that _phase_ , I tried to take him with me, you know? I tried to push him to go back to school, tried to make plans for us in Manchester, tried everything I could so that he'd make it out of the shithole he grew up in, too. I just," she says, pauses. "Couldn't, I guess."

"Is that why you defended him? Do you feel responsible for –"

"Yes."

It's like breathing again, telling him that, admitting to feelings she can't control. She's not in love with Sean, hasn't been for decades on end, but guilt is another insidious drive for making terrible judgment calls. It's her fault, she thinks, and it's always been her fault, and now he's in prison because of her and not one day goes by where she doesn't think she might not be able to pull herself out of bed the next morning because of it.

Clive doesn't say it's not her fault. She knows he doesn't think it is, from the way he looks at her, breathes next to her; but he knows her. Knows her enough to know that whatever he says won't make a difference. Instead, he smiles, sadly, asks: "What made you break it up? In the end?"

She sighs, shakes her head. "Alyssa Manfield," she says the name like an insult and Clive cocks an eyebrow at her. She sighs again. "It was a few months before I went off to uni, she went around the place telling everybody they were sleeping together."

"Ah, that's -"

"To be honest, I don't think they were," she counters before he can go on and get back into his favourite hobby of pointing out to her how much of a jerk Sean is. "He denied it," she adds and sees Clive roll his eyes; she gently shoves his shoulder. "It wasn't the point, anyway," she admits, looks down at her hands, hugging her knees close to her chest. "It just felt like one more thing I didn't want to deal with," she admits. She wasn't brave, didn't do the right thing, didn't hang on as much as she could have, should have. She was tired, she remembers, wanted to run away.

"I'm sorry," he says and she feels his lips against her temple, rough with five o'clock turned midnight shadow. She nods, closes her eyes.

They stay silent for a while and again, she finds that she doesn't really know what to say. She thinks of the day they've spent and of her cheeks that hurt from laughing too much, thinks of dart games and pulling faces, and teenage angst, and reaches out for his hand in the dark. His thumb caresses her skin, softly; she closes her eyes, feels him move, hears him dragging his leather jacket closer.

"Marth?" he says, quietly and she opens her eyes, smiles.

"Yeah?"

He moves a bit to be able to face her, shifts away from under the blanket she pulled around her knees. He places something on the floor in front of them. It's a box, a small, square, black jewellery box, like the ones in the movies. She takes a wild guess at what is in there and even if she's got to admit she's never finished a book mentioning that someone's heart stopped beating and then going on without mentioning their death, she thinks right this minute, that's exactly what happens to hers. It stops her words, her movements, the air coming in and out of her lungs.

"I've been trying to give this to you all weekend," he says but it barely registers in her brain. "I just –" he starts again, stops. "Open it."

She doesn't think she's capable of rational thought, right at this minute, which is why, she thinks, she does, almost automatically, like Leo, saying goodbye because his mum said so. There's a part of her that hopes she's got it wrong, that it's not what she thinks it is. She looks but then, it's exactly what she thinks it is. It's a black box with a ring in it, with a diamond mounted on it, with –

She opens her mouth to say – well, she doesn't know what to say, actually.

She thinks it shows on her face because: "Before you say anything," he interrupts, his hand shortly touching her knee. "It's – It was my grandmother's," he adds. It doesn't explain anything, as far as she's concerned, other than the look of it, she guesses, how old and lovingly ornate it seems. "I'm not –" he starts, looks at her, smiles. "I'm not asking, or _proposing,_ anything, Marth. And if we never make it anywhere, well, I can't say I'll be fine, but -" he shrugs.

Above them, she can see the clouds moving with the wind, reflecting the city lights. The moon moves in and out of shade, the glow softly stirring around them; it's only ever pitch darkness in her dreams.

"You can wear it, or keep it locked in a drawer forever if you want, I don't care. It's yours," Clive adds, when she doesn't speak. "Whatever we are, I think it was yours from the day I met you."

Her mouth opens, closes; it's a very long time until she feels like words might even leave it again, one day. It occurs to her that he may still be speaking, or not, may be waiting for her to say something. She feels dizzy. Dizzy like that day when she dragged him into an empty courtroom and held onto his hand for fear that the ground may collapse under her.

As if reading her mind – or maybe how white her face gets, she guesses - "Are you going to _swoon_ again?" Clive asks, joking, and it may not be that clever or that funny but at least she does hear his words, then, it gives her brain something to focus on.

"Fuck off," she says, smiling, shaking her head. A soft chuckle escapes his lips.

She doesn't really mean to but slowly, she finds herself picking the box up and bringing it closer to her eyes, watching the moonlight as it dances upon it. Things get less blurry as she focuses, but still, she's careful, takes the ring out of the box, feels the weight of it in her hand.

The part of her brain that is somehow still alive and responsive silently acknowledges that yes: it's beautiful, _magnificent_ in fact, discreet and elegant, definitely the kind of thing she would wear if –

It's instinctive, she thinks, but she kisses him then and he responds to the touch of her lips, his mouth opening under hers. She feels them, those chemicals in her brain that say this is it, this is right, this where she's supposed to be. When she breaks the kiss, slowly, carefully, she takes the ring in her left hand, slides it down on the ring finger of her right. It sits well, there, she thinks, looking at it and biting her lip as she glances up at him. It's an engagement _ring_ , not an _engagement_ , and it's opposites, she likes it; it's a good thing. Her hand rests between them and he gently takes it in his, steady and oddly certain of something she can't quite identify. She feels his fingers brush against her skin, feels the cold of the metal as it slides down to base. It fits. She feels like Cinderella with shoes on.

"Happy birthday, Marth," he adds, softly and she laughs, then, loud and contagious because he does, too. He hadn't said it before, not yesterday when he showed up under the pretence of a conference or later when he mildly acknowledged it in the night. She hadn't thought anything of it, really, was just happy that he was there, has never really been one for gestures and celebrations, other than Billy's flowers and drinks with him at the Crown. Yet, when he says it, when she thinks about him being there, staying there and she kisses him again, the ring tangling in his hair, keeping him close. _Whatever we are,_ she thinks and it rings true, in her ear, like Billy's words used to when he called them 'the kids' and invented them as an item, as an _us_ bubbling under their skin.

When she breaks away again, her face mere inches from his and his fingers caressing her cheek, something occurs to her. She doesn't know if it's because of Billy, or because of Clive and the way he hung onto the ring like a secret. She stays silent, though, for a bit, until the thoughts get too loud in her head.

"It's genetic, you know?" she speaks, looking down to the floor, to her fingers, anywhere but him. "Alzheimer's, I mean."

She remembers her dad, the way he _knew_ , before everyone else did. He'd summoned her to his practice one afternoon, after he'd had a call from school about some argument she'd gotten herself into. It was winter, she recalls, flu season, she'd looked around at the people in the waiting room, thought to herself she was going to get sick.

'Things are going to change, Martha, you need to understand,' he'd said but she hadn't, not back then, had made a nonsensical comment about her mum and how she was trying to control her life, had stormed out of his office like she always did. Looking back, now, she wonders how he felt, wonders if he wished to be like her, head deep in the sand for as long as she possibly could.

"I looked it up," she goes on, hesitating. "Early onset, close family member – it's a fifty/fifty chance," she adds, smiling, nervously, her glance drifting to the city lights. Drifting anywhere but him. "I'm not really good at fifty/fifty chances."

"Marth –"

"There's a test," she whispers, after a bit. "They run your DNA and tell you if you have it."

"Do you?"

She bites her lip, make herself look at him. "I don't know. I didn't want to know," she breathes. He opens his mouth, almost nods before - "Then, I got pregnant," she goes on, glancing down, unable to maintain eye contact. "And I thought – Well, I don't know what I thought exactly. I only got the results in my pigeonhole two weeks after the baby was gone, so I didn't look," she breathes. "Threw the envelope in my handbag and that was that, really."

"Do you still have it?"

She looks at her handbag thrown on the floor a few feet away, starts: "I –" stops.

"Marth," Clive sighs, shaking his head. "Don't tell me you've been dragging it around for three years?"

She sighs, too, glancing away. It didn't happen like that, wasn't planned, she didn't mean for it to happen, it just –

"Marth, that's insane," he presses. "You either open it or you don't, you don't torture yourself with it for –"

"It's not that fucking simple, it's –" she snaps, stops, _breathes,_ explains. "Sometimes, I take it out and I want to open it, but then I think what's the point? Because I've always told myself I wouldn't be like him. And, I know the symptoms, Clive, I know what it's like, and the day I know I have it…"

"Marth -"

"Oh, don't go all Sarah Stevens on me," she says, rolling her eyes. "You don't know what it's like, you haven't seen –" she wants to talk about her father and what it was like, and what – _No,_ she decides, she doesn't really want to talk about it. It's her problem, not his. "I'm sorry," she apologises, quick, decisive. She didn't mean to snap at him, didn't mean to - "I shouldn't –"

He stops her with a finger raised on his mouth and "sh," he whispers until she finally looks up at him. He smiles, with a hand against her shoulder and: "Can I ask you something?" he whispers, after a while, his voice soft and soothing. She nods, weakly, bites her lip. "Can I look?" he asks and frankly, it hadn't even occurred to her that he would want to, ever, that he would –

She doesn't know if she wants him to know, doesn't know if he should –

"I won't tell you if you don't want to know," he whispers, staring into her eyes. "But I do."

As she looks back at him, she remembers him when he found out about Billy, and the days that followed. She hated knowing. Hated keeping that secret, hated knowing what was coming and being unable to prevent it. It felt like watching her father forget her, forget her mum, watching water slip past her fingers. She looks at him and realises that _Clive,_ though, would have wanted to know. He's like that, she knows, he likes facts and preparing for things when she doesn't, when she prefers to watch the water flow rather to try and catch it. Maybe he should know, too, because she –

She stops there, mid-thought, wouldn't know how to say it, anyway, wouldn't know, so she nods, finally, reaching to fish the letter out for him. It's battered, has been sleeping in her handbag under piles of files and things for three years, her name on the front almost faded out. Clive turns it around, goes to open it but before he can, the thought come back to her like something she needs to say, something that keeps her heart from slowing down, something –

She grabs his hand, stops him. "Whatever's in there," she starts, trails off.

She used to think that she didn't want to end up like her father, forgetting everything that had ever made him _him,_ way too long before he forgot how to breathe. She used to think that when the time came, when she'd forget to pick up the milk up one too many times, she'd make that decision for herself, with a glass of red and sleeping pills, because she deserves better than that. Tonight, though, she looks at him and thinks something else, for the first since her dad got diagnosed: she thinks she doesn't want him to through what her mum and she went through. It doesn't change the end game, doesn't change her decision, but it means something, she realises, admits to herself. She _breathes_.

Her voice is quiet, arms hugging her frame tight wrapped in the blanket, looking at the little city lights dancing ahead of them. She can feel the heat of his body next to hers, can't really see his face in the dark. If he asks, she thinks, she'll say. If he doesn't, well - "Don't let me forget this okay?" she asks, softly. "Don't let me forget tonight?"

She feels like she's standing outside a building, after dinner and a movie, drinks, with a boy that's about to kiss her and her heart pounding in her chest.

Clive sighs, but not a heavy sigh, more of a smiling sigh, the kind of sigh that makes her turn and look at him.

"Why?" he asks.

She smiles, nervous, and _why,_ really? It's funny, she doesn't know _why_. Maybe it's the way he looks at her when she's happy, or when she's angry, or maybe it's the ring he gave her and the expectations he didn't have, the quiet, honest words that he uttered or of the fact that he showed up at all, just because it was her birthday, and yet never said so. Perhaps, it's just because she met him, at Shoe Lane, one September morning, a long time ago. _Why_ is something she's been wondering about for far too long, every time she looks at him, every time she feels like she's falling and he throws out a hand, catches her and tells her to _breathe._

"I love you," she says.

He stops mid-movement, mid-breath, his whole body still, sitting next to her. "Say that again," he says, automatically, it seems, and she laughs, bites her lip.

"I love –"

It's not the same as last time, though, because he cuts her off before she has time to repeat her words. His mouth is on hers before she knows it, strong and confident, stubble grazing her lips. His hand finds her lower back, his body pushing her down onto the blanket until he's on top of her and his fingers are everywhere, on her skin under her shirt and in her hair, her hands curving behind his neck. The roof is hard against her back but she can't bring herself to care; it reminds her of last time, when they were drenched in rain, reminds her of _them_ , really.

She briefly wonders how far this is going to get when his mouth leaves hers to find her neck -though, in fairness, this roof has probably seen worse in the past and it's not like anyone can see them, so –

He stops, though a few seconds later, remains close, above her, staring into her eyes. "I really love Bono," he says and she bursts out laughing at the same time he does, shoves him off half-heartedly and tries to get back up, her stomach hurting with fits of laughter in her ears.

"I mean, with all my heart," he insists as he sits back up and tucks at her hand to bring her with him; she finds herself chuckling again, shaking her head at him.

"Oh, shut up," she tells him rolling her eyes and bringing him back to her anyway, leaving him breathless against her mouth. She pulls away, eventually, looking at him and –

"I love you too, Martha Costello," he whispers, in her ear.

.

The envelope makes its way back between his fingers, eventually, after more fits of laughter and pointless jokes about U2, after their last glass of wine is drunk, too. He swallows, his forefinger slipping and slowly ripping the paper open. She bites her lip, doesn't want to look at him, but can't bring herself to look away.

She sees him go through the words in front of him but he doesn't show anything really, just reads for an agonising thirty seconds or so, his face blank when he finally glances up at her.

"You sure you don't want to know?" he asks, staring back at her poker face on – if the envelope didn't say 'personal and confidential' on it, she thinks he could have been reading her grocery list, for all she knew.

Somehow, it's comforting, knowing that he knows without having to know herself.

"Yeah," she says, briefly shutting her eyes before nodding, certain. "I don't."

So, he nods, too, smiles, and doesn't tell her. Will never tell her unless she asks, she knows, because Clive's like that, too, wants to know for _him_. She trusts him, she thinks, she really does.

With the letter in hand, he reaches out for her lighter thrown to the side earlier when she almost lit up a cigarette and brings it close to the paper. "So you don't have to carry it around, anymore, all right?" he asks and she nods, gives him her blessing and watches as paper turn into ash, slowly, script burnt and unreadable, falling into her ashtray.

The flame dies, eventually, and she lookup at him; he takes her hand in his.

"Come on," he speaks in the dark, starting to move to sit up. She's a bit cold, now, they're sitting on top of the blanket rather than under it and – "Let's go to bed."

"Wait."

_It_ is a tricky, manipulative thing, really. _It_ is a fleeting thought caressing the back of her mind at regular intervals, when her mum mentions _it_ , or when he pulls faces at someone inside a café, the kind of thing that is never truly there, never truly real but never leaves, like a non-committal shrug as a response to an important question. She'd never thought about _it_ again, really, or about _it_ again _with him_ , at least, just kind of an abstract what if in her head. _It_ 's wrong, _it_ 's stupid, was never even here in the first place, was never meant to –

"Marth?" Clive utters, low and distant, looks at her.

She only realises her hand is resting on her stomach when he tries to take it in his, smiling, trying to get her to talk to him and tell him what's going inside her head and -

"I –" she says, stops. His hand rests on top of hers for a split second before she relents and takes it, leaving her body, shakes her head.

She sees something in his look, something that tells her he _knows_ , tells her that -

"Never mind," she says, her glance catching his for the shortest of times; she shakes her head to herself and smiles. "Come on," she adds. "Let's go to bed."

Clive gets up and pulls her with him. "All right," he says. "Let's step over that gap again and try not to die –" he whines, looking at the ledge of the building and the window of her bedroom on the other side. She rolls her eyes.

"Wuss," she says, again, shaking her head at him.

.

Her bed isn't a twin but it's definitely smaller than her bed at home so they have to squeeze in together, she spoons into him and smiles, his hand trailing in her hair, then down her arm to her hip. "I love you," he whispers behind her. She lets out a short laugh, bites her lip. The thing is, he says that and no matter how lightly she pretends to take it, her heart still skips a beat every time he does.

He's playing piano against her hip again, his fingers toying with the lace of the side of her pants: it's frankly distracting.

"My mother's _downstairs,_ Clive," she says, another chuckle escaping her lips. "Say that all you want, but I'm not having sex with you."

"Oh, now, you know," he whispers in her ear with a smile in his voice. "What you're supposed to say is: 'I love you, too, Clive. I love you so much, Clive –'"

She puffs out a laugh, rolls her eyes. "Shut up. Now, I'm sleeping," she says and hears him laugh, behind her.

The thing is: she isn't. And the other thing is: she doesn't think he is, either.

When his hand falls down from her hip and follows the curves of her skin, at first, she wants to believe that he is. Listens to his breaths in her ear and almost convinces herself of their regularity, almost convinces herself that he doesn't know what she's thinking, what she was thinking just minutes before, outside on the roof, or that he won't say, if he does. Yet, she feels one of his fingers tap once, twice on her stomach; she becomes acutely aware of the rhythm of her own breaths, of the way his hand follows the movement of her body against his.

It's a really long time before he speaks, though, remains still to the point where eventually, she does wonder if he has _indeed_ fallen asleep in the interim, until she hears his voice, a murmur in her ear.

"Marth?"

"Yeah?"

Her own voice is detached but she's pretty sure he knows she's holding her breath against his hand; she makes a conscious effort to let go, a long sigh escaping her mouth. _In, out,_ she thinks. _In, out._

"What you were going to say –"

"Forget it," she says, quick, _too_ quick, really. She feels his hand stop drawing circles against her stomach and just resting there, for a while, just –

She doesn't want to talk about _it_ , doesn't want him to know, or talk. Frankly, he's learnt enough things about her and what's going on in her head tonight for a lifetime, really, except: "Marth?" he says, again, and as he goes on, she closes her eyes, holds her breath and this time, doesn't think she cares if he knows. "I would want to, you know?" he adds, quiet, like he, also, barely dares. "If you wanted to."

The last time his hand rested on her stomach without being on the way to anywhere else was years ago, she remembers. It was dark outside and he was a bit drunk in her apartment and they were young, felt so, so young when she looks at them now and how naïve and unaware they were, couldn't think that anything could ever go wrong.

She had held his gaze as he stood at the bottom of the stairs down to her flat, remnants of the drizzling rain falling onto the floor of her hallway when he stepped past the threshold. She'd slid him a beer, settling next to him on the couch, nursing tea in her hands, her thigh bumping against his:

"This is going to sound stupid but can I -" he had finally asked after skirting around the topic for a good half hour, - feigning interest in chambers gossip and rambling about cases, - his gaze hovering over her skin. It made her laugh, back then, scoot closer to him as she lifted her shirt, the touch of his fingers slightly cold and wet from his drink, not that different from the gel the doctors had put there last week. He laid his palm flat against her and discretely; she observed his reaction: with clothes on, she wasn't showing yet, barely looked like she'd put on any weight, but lying down like this, her skin bare, it was another story. There was a bump, a very real bump, something that even she had been unable to ignore, lately. Quietly, his eyes had set on hers, she remembers, his thumb tracing patterns on her skin. He asked if it moved, yet, and wasn't it strange, to feel like you have another person growing inside you.

She stays silent in the dark, now, turning thoughts around in her head. She wants this to be real, doesn't want this to be real, wants –

Quickly, suddenly, she turns around to face him, finds his eyes wide-open in front of her, bites her lip. "Clive," she says, a breath. "I'm not even sure –"

He smiles, interrupts. They're lying so close to each other she feels his breaths on her skin. "Would be pretty weird if either of us was, don't you think?"

"It's not –" she starts, sighs. "Even if we try again –"

"We weren't really _trying_ the first time."

It annoys her that he makes her smile and yet she does, shakes her head and ignores him. "I'm thirty-nine years old."

That is one tangible objection she feels is very relevant and yet, he just shrugs, barely blinks. "So?" he says. "We try. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it's not for us. I'm personally in favour of lots of _trying_ –"

She smiles and rolls her eyes, bites her lip. "It's not funny, Clive –"

"Of course, it is," he says, and suddenly he sounds serious, his gaze narrowing on her. She doesn't dare move. "It's _us_ , Marth," he adds, again, like last night, like it means something.

She opens her mouth but –

"You and me, Marth," he continues, instead. "Me making you laugh and you making me laugh, and us screaming at each other, sometimes, and making up most of the time," he smiles. "And you being bloody _insufferable_ , sometimes, and me being insufferable most of the time, and it's –"

When he trails off, she's forgotten her words, forgotten to roll her eyes or shake her head, just –

"I want you," he breathes and for the first time in a while, she breathes, too. "And, I want that," he says. "If you still do," he adds, pauses, his thumb against her cheek. "Marth, there's no one I'd like to argue with endlessly about schools and judo classes, and Christmas presents but you," he trails off again, looks into her eyes. "I love you," he shrugs, non-committal, like it's nothing more than water being wet. "I want a baby with you."

Three years ago, when he laid his hand on her stomach, the bloody thing mostly made her feel nauseous, frankly, so that's what she told him, admitted that much with a laugh and told him the story of how she had almost thrown up on the police misconduct panel a few days before. She honestly thought she'd stopped breathing when he leaned down, his breath caressing her skin and said: 'Hey baby,' spoken softly. 'Be nice to mummy.' And _mummy_ , she heard, looked up at him and _daddy_ , she thought, right before he kissed her, a quick peck, across her lips, like something free and secret, something that didn't bind them to anything. 'We're going to be okay,' he added, breaking away, his forehead resting against hers. She remembers catching herself thinking they were going to be _parents_ , one day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] If you follow me on Tumblr, you'll probably recognise the little flashback at the end of this chapter. I honestly wrote this months ago and posted it up as Bumps because I didn't think it was ever going to make it in the fic, but then I was writing this and thought it was perfect and had to put it in. Obviously, I added a bit of punctuation, haha, as it's not a three-sentence fic anymore.


	8. viii

viii.

.

_Some days, I don't know if I am wrong or right._

_Your mind is playing tricks on you, my dear, 'cause though the truth may vary, this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore._

Little Talks – Of Monsters and Men

.

.

It doesn't happen.

They don't talk about it.

She doesn't want him to think she's insecure, doesn't want to make this more of a committed _thing_ than it is, which is an odd phrase, considering the conversation they've had, considering the ring on her finger, but then they've been known to operate in reverse when it comes to whatever the fuck this is, so having a child and saying _I love you_ before they actually get serious wouldn't exactly be a first.

She told him when she went off the pill, the next day, when they stopped in the car park beneath his building and her alarm rang on her phone. 'Okay,' he said, catching her gaze.

'Okay?'

'Okay,' he smiled, nodded, standing against his car with his arms crossed as she stood against hers.

_Bloody, fucking, 'okay', then,_ she thought, pretty convinced that this was the worst idea they'd ever had. Pretty convinced, too, that it wouldn't happen.

So, it doesn't.

Other things happen, though.

.

She goes back to work. It's a little over three months after that night in September when she meets Charlotte. She's been going back and forth from London to Manchester a few times a month, the thing with Evershed gradually becoming a regular one. She talks to students about a job she used to love and tells herself that it's enough, that that's what freedom must look like. It's depressing how clean her flat has been since she quit working, and how stocked her fridge is.

They're sitting at a hotel bar, sometime mid-November when Jo asks: "Aren't you bored?"

She asks because she's had four glasses of wine and it hits Martha like it should, like a drunken slap in the face, makes her freeze for a short instant. "I'm fine," she says _._

"It just doesn't sound like you, the whole not working thing," Jo laughs, before liquid slides down her throat again.

Jo has in her words the brutality of people whose daily actions don't bear many consequences, of people for whom it's accumulation that counts. Accumulation of good deeds and thoughtful words whispered to loved ones will grant her an outstanding marriage and first-class children, people around her who will be careful and caring, just like she wants them to be. Jo doesn't know about life-changing earthquakes and trying to stick the edges back together with sellotape.

Plenty of women stop working, Martha thinks. There is no rational reason for which she should be an exception. " _You_ stopped working," she points out to Jo, looking at her hands. The counter of the bar is a dark shade of amber; she plays with the diamond of her ring with her thumb (Jo's reaction when she first saw it looked like her eyes had fallen off her eyeballs in shock), rolling it towards the inside of her finger, then back up again.

Jo laughs. "I've three kids to take care of and worked in a call centre scamming poor old couples into buying overpriced leather couches. It's not the same."

"Isn't it?"

Jo rolls her eyes at that, shakes her head, drinks. " _Please_."

'You think you can get them off,' Clive said to her, one night, putting on his coat. It was years ago, she was working, probably going to pull an all-nighter; she'd turned him down for drinks at the Crown. 'In the end, you're just feeding them hope.'

The truth is, back then, she thought hope was better than nothing. The truth is, too: Jo's right, somehow. She's _bored_. As hard as it may be to believe, it does get old, after a while, getting up whenever she feels like. She reads novels and magazines. She books and actually _makes_ medical appointments. She catches up on a decade of films she hasn't had time to see, discovers about this thing called Netflix that develops into an actual addiction on certain cold weekday afternoons. She lies on her couch with tea and a blanket wrapped over her body and makes it through anything remotely watchable in a few weeks. Then, it's back to square one.

Clive doesn't say anything. Clive goes to work and comes back and invites himself over to 'watch something,' which is apparently what the kids call it these days. He makes her laugh. She misses him when he's not there. A part of her still can't quite fathom why he seems willing to stick around. She keeps expecting him to walk away, to get sick of the limbo they're in but somehow, she wakes up in the morning and he's still there, trying to get inside her pants before heading off to work.

Sometimes, she feels like a housewife.

Sometimes, she misses Billy. It's an ache in her heart that gradually fades in the winter mist, but never truly goes away. Sometimes, things happen that she wishes she could tell him about. Sometimes, things happen that she's happy he won't see. Sometimes, it's just the memories that pop inside her brain, uninvited, out of reach, inches away from the tips of her fingers. She wishes there were other things to think about.

She misses watching Bethany and Jake circle around like a couple of peacocks eyeing each other up. She misses the rush of adrenaline of late returns and courts dates, misses trying to wrap her brain around complicated things. For the lack of something better, she gets fascinated with biology, cycles, and pointless articles that dictate what she should or shouldn't eat ( _Trying to Conceive?_ The headline reads, _Five Changes You Should Make to Your Diet_ ).

Sometimes, it feels like being a fish trapped in a fucking tank.

But then sometimes, Clive gets a difficult case and the amount of times that he claims he doesn't _care_ becomes inversely proportional to how much he actually does. She sits on the couch next to him and tells herself she's glad not to be walking in his shoes. She genuinely wonders why anyone in their right mind would ever want to do this job.

She wonders if frankly she ever was, in her right mind, that is.

(Sean still writes to her. Almost weekly. She throws the letters away without opening them.

She guesses at least, that way, she knows he's still alive.)

.

November turns into early December, a few weeks before Christmas, little lights framing the streets, snow turning brown and mushy at the edges of the pavement. It's a secret (her secret) but she's always liked that time of the year. Not Christmas itself but the efforts put into the windows of shops, the air brutally cold against her cheeks, scarf wrapped in three perfect circles around her neck, the _churros_ sold at the markets. Clive brings a tree home (well, to her flat) one evening, a small but large thing that looses its thorns _everywhere_ for the following three weeks and takes up at least a fourth of her living room.

"Trees are for children, Clive," she tells him, giving him a half-hearted eye-roll. She looks at the tree, looks at him and the mischievous smile on his lips and grins, too, against her better judgement.

"Well, isn't that what you said last time we argued?" he laughs from the other side of the room, wiping his hands on pants after adjusting the tree in the corner. "'You're a bloody _child!'_ "

She rolls her eyes again, steps around the kitchen counter, sets her empty tea mug on the sink. The last time they argued, actually, started like that, with a mug he hand-washed when it could easily have gone into the dishwasher. It was stupid, she knows, but she was bored and frustrated, so she argued a pointless point to the death and made him sleep on the couch as a result, banging the door on her way to the bedroom.

(Well, she guesses she did tell him to go back to his bloody flat, but he never did. The couch is his fault, then, not hers).

She doesn't say anything, now, just shrugs in a way that says _I was right_ , and turns around to look at the tree. It's green, nude; at least, she thinks, it's a nice plant in her apartment she doesn't have to worry about keeping alive.

"Well, I don't have anything to decorate it," she shrugs, walking closer to him. He sits on the arm of the couch, the tree to their right; she stands in front of him.

The last time they argued, she had been a couple of days late, that morning. She had made herself wait those couple of days, just to be _sure,_ before going into the shop and buying a test. She got home, walked into the bathroom to pee on the stick, just to discover blood on her underwear.

Clive doesn't know about this. They're operating under an unspoken tell-me-if-anything-happens agreement for this, so she keeps all that _doesn't_ happen to herself, like the amount of articles she reads and the app that she's almost ashamed to have downloaded on her phone to track things. She knows she shouldn't, knows it's never going to happen, knows she shouldn't _hope_ this much, but then she's the world's greatest optimist, apparently, and there's not much else to channel her hopes in.

_Never go to bed angry_ , her mother used to say, so maybe that's why she couldn't sleep, tossed and turned for an hour or two before throwing in the towel, deciding that if she wasn't even going doze off, she might as well watch another episode of that bloody series and figure out who Tommy chooses between May and Grace (she's with May, on that one, business before love, always). Foolishly, perhaps, she had thought Clive had left after their argument, (again, 'go back to your bloody flat!' she'd insisted), so it was a bit unexpected to hear the sound of his regular breaths when she entered the living room. She doesn't know why, exactly, but there, in the middle of the night, she padded down across the room to sit on the coffee table, watching him sleep for a good half-hour. She played with her ring, a bit, turning it around her finger; it's another bad habit she built, whenever she feels unsure as to what comes next.

'Are you going to stay here all night?' Clive's voice suddenly rang in the quiet of the night, nudging her out of her thoughts. ''Cause frankly it's a bit weird,' he added, eyes shut and his voice groggy; she wondered how long he'd been lying like this for, awake and silent, how long it'd taken him to notice she was there.

'I don't know,' she said, honestly, guessed _yes,_ it may have seemed a bit _weird_ , true, but she didn't really want to move. After a bit, she watched him shift, his eyes still closed, visibly trying to fall back asleep. 'I'm sorry,' she said, looking at him.

His eyes opened at that, grey in the dark, immediately catching her gaze. 'Did I hear that right?' he spoke and beneath the sleepiness she could almost hear a smirk in his words. 'Did the great Martha Costello Q.C. actually apologise?'

She smiled back, nodded, guessed she had, as _weird_ as it may have seemed.

'Say that again,' he said, a light chuckle escaping her lips.

'Don't push your luck.'

He smiled, quietly; she felt his hand around hers, fingers intertwined. It was warmer, had been under the blankets for a while. 'Marth, what's going on?' he asked, his gaze focused on her face.

She thought of telling him. Saying: _I had my period today_. Saying: _I'm scared_ , and _what if this is a mistake?_ The thing was: the few times they'd ever talked about it, they'd always had a tendency to deflect, to talk like people whose actions don't bear consequences. Clive brought it up – still does, sometimes – but mostly as an excuse to have sex (as if they needed any). He did so when they got back to London, that Sunday in September and when she thinks back, it's the only real conversation they've ever had about this. He brought it up in bed and she froze for a moment, bit her lip and said: 'Are we ready, though?'

He laughed, in her ear, hand travelling up her side. 'Absolutely not.' His lips were close to her skin; she could feel his breaths on there. 'So, good thing it takes time…' he added, voice flirty and low. 'And dedication…' His mouth trailed kisses down the line of her jaw, her neck to her collarbone. She pressed her hips against his; he shifted on top of her a bit.

'What if it happens and we're not ready?' she whispered and he sighed, looking down at her.

'Then, we'll get ready. Like last time.'

She raised an eyebrow at him as he moved up again, his face inches from hers. 'We were anything but ready last time.'

He laughed, again, and briefly caught her lips. 'Look, I'm not saying the argument's flawless, but are we debating or fucking, here?'

She moved her hand from the small of his back to the space between them, feeling him beneath the fabric of his underwear; his breath caught in his throat. 'I don't know,' she said, biting her lip. 'You tell me.'

So, _yeah,_ a few months later, she didn't say when he asked ' _what's going on?'_ because what could she say, anyway? They had agreed, after all, that _if it doesn't happen, it's not for us_ , and there's not much either of them can do about it. She's not the kind of woman who's always wanted children; she's not the kind of person to turn to doctors and medical procedures or adoption obstacle courses. It's not for her, not for them, because she knows that as much as she thinks about it, every month, a part of her is also relieved, in the back of her mind because again, if they can barely talk about it, they're clearly not ready. She just needs something else to obsess about.

In the night, his hand kept caressing hers until she spoke, quietly, biting her lip. 'Do you think I should go back to work?' she asked, looking down at him as he lay on the couch.

He let out a soft chuckle, an eyebrow raised at her that said _so, that's what it's about?_ and sat up, slowly, his back against the cushions as she sat facing him on the coffee table. He caught her gaze and her other hand in his. 'I'm not suicidal, Marth. I'm never going to tell you what to do as far as work goes,' he said, smiled. 'Plus, I've tried before, it doesn't work.'

She smiled, shook her head and later, took him back to bed. She stays silent now, too, even if Christmas trees really _are_ for children and it hurts, a bit, that there's nothing else that hits her mind. Her thoughts stop haunting her, though, for a while when things escalate like they always do, on the couch, until they loose their balance and fall off on the floor by accident. They're half-naked, limbs intertwined, her back hurts but she can't stop laughing. Clive pushes the coffee table away and rolls over next to her, arms behind his head. "Let's just stay down here, shall we?" he says and she laughs, rolls over to sit on top of him, this time, kissing him with a large grin on her face.

"I love you," he says, when they part.

Now, just because they've both said it _once_ doesn't mean they actually _say_ it, as a present tense habit. Well, _she_ doesn't. He does, sometimes, in the middle of the night when he thinks she's asleep, and she doesn't answer, like another secret she keeps. It's not that she doesn't feel it, _per se_ , it's just this nagging thought in her head that saying it too much, taking this new thing they have for granted might somehow jinx it. What she feels is ambivalent, really, because she loves him until she remembers how much it hurt when they were at each other's throats last year and she's suddenly not so sure that these feelings she has are such a great idea, anymore. They bicker over stupid things all the time and have tiny, little rows like the last one but they have yet to properly, bloodily _argue_ and she's not sure she wants to be there when that happens.

She kisses him, again, a bit later, hips sinking to meet his as he pushes into her; she bites his lip by accident, she thinks, doesn't mean to, but he doesn't seem to care. It's a while before they move, after they're done, limbs intertwined between the couch and the coffee table, lying on her carpet. Clive's hand finds her discarded bra next to him, throws it at the tree. One of the straps catches in the branches; she raises an amused eyebrow at him.

"There," he says. "Decorated."

Maybe Tommy chooses Grace, the optimist in her whispers, maybe that's what love is about.

.

She never finds out whether it's a coincidence, or if he had anything to do with it. She doesn't ask, has always been a believer in fate and good timing, anyway.

A couple weeks later, she's waiting for him on the bench outside a courtroom inside the courthouse, when it happens. Usually, she waits for him outside in the street because at least there she can smoke - she waits for him outside places often, these days, doesn't quite know how she feels about it – but today is different. Today, she's trying very hard to look like someone who didn't try five different outfits in the morning, actually wishes she could stand outside with a fag but she's washed and combed her hair earlier, put on perfume and make-up to try and make a good impression – _we all want to be better people than we are_ – so, cigarettes are out of the question.

Today, they're meeting his parents for lunch.

Now, she agreed to it about a week ago, when he mentioned it as they sat on her couch, again, her feet resting on his lap, his fingers casually tracing lines up her calf. They had ended up buying fairy lights for the tree; they cast a low, blue shade across the room. 'Do you want to come?' he asked, strategically faking indifference, tracing lines up and down her skin.

'Meet your parents?' she asked. Her heartbeat had spiked, panic alarm bells ringing loud in her ears but on the outside she didn't move, pretending to barely look up from her book.

'Have lunch,' he amended, glancing sideways, finally catching her gaze.

'With your _parents._ '

'Yes,' he smiled. 'With my parents. You're not _meeting_ them, you already know my parents,' he added, matter-of-factly, trying to gauge her reaction.

Well, she guessed she did, in a very literal sense of the word, they had _met_ and said 'hi' the day Clive and she had gotten sworn in, and Martha had indeed very well overheard when Clive's mother had hushed 'ah, it's good that they take people like that in, now,' when he'd mentioned she was, really, from Bolton.

She pursed her lips, desperately looking for a way out but it wasn't like her schedule was at all busy, these days, and classes in Manchester had stopped due to exams and Christmas holidays, so there went her exit road.

Fast forward a few days and that's how she gets here, waiting outside a bloody courtroom, reading a Guardian article on her phone while attempting to focus on something other than what his parents might think of her. Clive seems so certain his parents are going to like her – _at this point, they'd be happy with pretty much anyone if it means I've settled down, Marth,_ he said (was that supposed to make her feel better or worse, she's not sure) – that she has to resist the urge to point out to him _everything_ that could actually go very, very wrong, there. She's going to keep a low profile, she's decided, only speak when asked a question, stay polite, don't touch on work or politics, make sure she doesn't get a piece of salad or lipstick on her teeth and hopefully, it won't be too much of a disaster.

She feels like she's going in for her silk interview again.

Clive's running late – it's fine, they actually banked on that, told his parents to meet at one when he was supposed to be out of court by noon – and as she waits on the bench outside court, a young woman comes to sit next to her. She's not _young-young_ but definitely young _er_ , in her early thirties probably, her hair long and a dark shade of brown, fringe falling straight just above her eyes. Her eyes are a slightly lighter than her hair, her skin pale, her face round, smile large and genuine.

There's plenty of sitting space on another bench, a couple steps away, right by the door of the courtroom, so Martha has the very distinct impression that something is off from the beginning, without really knowing why.

"I'm Charlotte," the woman says, unprompted. Her voice rings somewhat higher than you'd expect but she also speaks faster, sounds more confident than her looks suggest. "I really like your dress."

Instinctively, Martha's gaze drifts down to her lap, where the hem of her dress shows. It's black, plain, a little bit boring – she kept going back and forth between that and a suit this morning but she figured Clive's parents would already know she stopped working, so showing up in a blouse and one of her pencil skirts would seem a bit weird.

"Thanks," she just says, followed by an awkward pause, doesn't really know what to add. She can't honestly reciprocate the complement ( _Charlotte_ is wearing some sort of flashy flowery shirt with orange pants – it fits her, oddly, but Martha thinks it would be going a bit far to say she _likes_ the outfit), doesn't know what the woman wants, either, but feels like it's a bit rude not to say anything more so at least, she decides to reciprocate the introduction. "I'm Ma –" she starts, but gets interrupted.

"I know who you are," Charlotte says, turning towards her.

_Okay, then,_ Martha thinks _._ Well, she guesses she _is_ sitting outside court, after all, and although she hasn't been working in the last six months, people still know who she is. It's kind of why she usually prefers to stand outside the building or wait for Clive in the Prêt across the street with her headphones in her ear so that people aren't tempted to start chatting to her, wondering why they haven't seen her in court in a while.

"I've always dreamed of this perfect plain black dress, you know? The kind of thing that classy people wear to fancy restaurants or something," Charlotte continues, still unprompted, her look traveling up and down Martha's form for a second before she adds: "Well, it seems you've found it."

The first thought that occurs to Martha, then, is that it's the dress she wore to Billy's funeral. She actually thought about that this morning when she considered putting it on, wondered if Clive would remember, wondered if maybe she shouldn't change into something else. She tried, but then she'd already decided against the suits and the blue dress she'd bought for their date was too summer-y, and her other grey dress had creases on it which she didn't have time to iron out – she figured Clive's parents would be the kind of people who would notice creases – so in the end, she changed back into the black dress. Awkward, she just wants to clarify – "I'm sorry, what –" but as she opens her mouth again, the door to the courtroom opens.

Little groups of people start making their way out in tiny packs like sweets out of a box of tic-tacs. People from the gallery are first, followed by the defence – she thinks she recognises the guy from somewhere – and Clive, with Nicola from the CPS looking down at her notes on a legal pad, deep in conversation. He absentmindedly throws a sideway glance at her, looks slightly surprised (pleasantly, though) to see her inside the building and throws her a look that asks for five more minutes, before he goes back to focusing on whatever Nicola is saying. On second thought, though, as Nicola keeps talking and looking at her notes, he steals another glance in Martha's direction and this time, spots Charlotte. His expression changes, Martha notices; smile turning into a frown, he throws a questioning look at her and she, in turn, throws the same look at Charlotte.

Slowly, Charlotte gets up from the bench leaving a piece of paper next to her, in scribbled handwriting. She smiles, says: "This is my number. I'd love for us to grab coffee, someday."

.

"Did you sleep with her?" she asks Clive, later, on the way to the restaurant, because the entire thing was so odd that at least it would make sense, in some way, would explain the look they threw each other and the invitation for coffee.

Clive laughs, loud; they cross a street, the cold air hitting her cheeks. "She's gay," he says, the cold driving smoke out of his mouth, as they step back onto the pavement.

_Okay,_ Martha thinks, although that's not _really_ an answer to her question but does cut short of the only plausible explanation she'd found for the encounter.

"That's Charlotte Day, Marth," Clive adds and _of course_ , she fucking thinks, because she should have _known._ It's been _years_ since she's last seen her, though, and she's always been too busy to be bothered to go to many bar social events and –

Charlotte Day is the daughter of Daniel and Catherine Day. Father's a judge, mother's one of the first women who ever made head of Chambers in a London set. Charlotte went into clerking for one of the biggest defence sets in London.

Clive winks at her, speaks again.

"You're being headhunted, Marth."

She rolls her eyes at him.

.

Lunch with his parents doesn't go as bad as she thought it would. They're older than her mum (she'd say late sixties, early seventies) but reasonably active. Clive's mother talks _a lot_ , she finds out, which makes the conversation quite easy-going, with talks about their last trip to New York and the play they've seen there, and Clive's brother's new job and the flock of grand-children Clive's four siblings seem to have brought to the family. She drinks a glass of red – enough to signal she's not pregnant, not enough to actually get tipsy – and Clive's father asks a bit about her family (no, she's never been married; no, she doesn't have children), and siblings, and what her father did, and when she moved to London, and whether she'd ever consider moving back. Clive throws a glance at her, at that; she purses her lips.

"I've been here almost twenty years, now. That's where my life is."

She feels his hand squeeze her knee under the table. She thinks it's a bit weird but when they all walk out of the restaurant and go their separate ways, she guesses maybe his parents don't dislike her too much, after all.

.

Now, about Charlotte: she rolls her eyes at him when he tells her she's being headhunted, sure, but still, the encounter keeps playing over and over in her head for the next week, so often she actually forgets to worry about whether or not she's going to get pregnant one day. So, on December 22nd, just shy of Christmas, she caves in and calls. It's probably nothing she'd be interested in, she insists, she's just curious, is all.

The coffee shop where Charlotte offers to meet that afternoon at has a bunch of elaborate explanations handwritten on blackboards behind the bar about what kinds of beans they grind and what kind of water they use, and a sign on the window at the entrance that reads _no, we don't have the wifi password. Talk to each other_. The people sitting at the table look like they're attempting to make a statement Martha's not sure she fully understands.

Charlotte takes the lid off her cup, blows on the hot liquid a bit. "Look," Martha starts, briefly glancing at the couple to their right, then back to her. "I'm professionally flattered by the attention but –"

She hears a sigh on the other end of the table. "You're telling me you're not interested."

"Yes," Martha nods. Charlotte took off her bonnet when they got in, a couple of snowflakes still perched at the top of her fringe.

"Okay, try that," Charlotte says, after a moment, catching her look. "Look at me and tell me you're not bored."

_Respectfully, I am,_ Martha thinks, but _respectfully, I can't do it again._ "I –"

"Tell me Martha Costello Q.C. is happy taking the train up to Manchester a few times a month to go teach an hour-long class on what it's like practice criminal law at the London bar while chilling on her sofa the rest of the time and is not even a little bored," Charlotte cuts in, sets her coffee down, untouched. "Tell me that and I'll go."

The coffee is too hot, it almost burns the tip of Martha's tongue when she tries it. She sets it down, too, warming her hands against the cup. They're sitting too close to the door, people coming in and out bringing in the winter chill with them. She shivers, opens her mouth, closes it. "I haven't practised in six months," she settles, after a bit.

"So?" Charlotte frowns, unconvinced. "You've forgotten the difference between murder and manslaughter?"

Martha rolls her eyes. "That's not what I meant, I –" she starts, stops, thinks she's going to get interrupted again, but isn't. In the end, she can't recall what she wanted to say.

Charlotte looks down for a moment, purses her lips, hesitating. "Look," she breathes, sitting up. "I can't replace Billy Lamb. I _could_ never replace him, even if I wanted to; I'm frankly not as good as he was. But I understand _clerking._ I'm not an office manager," she pauses, bites down her lip, seems to consider her next words. "I also don't take bribes or put my barristers in a position where they have to cover for me."

_Well, okay_ , Martha thinks. The girl isn't basking in diplomatic skills, clearly, but at least she's clear and honest which is also something to be appreciated, at the end of the day. Martha waits a bit, playing with the ring on her finger. Down, up, down, up, down; _Billy_ , she thinks. "Look, again," she sighs. "I appreciate the attention but –"

"You don't prosecute," Charlotte starts speaking, counting on her fingers at the same time. "You don't do rape, and you have a very self-sabotaging tendency to get overexcited by cases that don't pay a cent," she continues; Martha breathes out something between a sigh and a laugh, looks down. "It's my job to know my barristers -" she adds, stops. "Well, potential barristers, I guess."

_So, that's it_ , Martha thinks. She knew what this was from the beginning, knew that before she even walked in, but Clive was right: she _is_ being headhunted. As she said before, it's flattering, somehow, but then as soon as she met Charlotte, the other day, as soon as the thought of going back to work became a possibility, however remote, rather than a mere fantasy, she started thinking back of the nights spent boring over centuries-old precedents and dreaming of Sean's head hanging off a noose like Johnny Foster's, and concluded that well, she's not ready.

Yet: "With all due respect," Martha starts, breathes. "Even if I were interested – and that's a big if," she insists. "You're not the one voting me into Chambers, peers are."

It's true, and after everything that happened, she can't quite fathom how in the world any set would actually vote her in. True, it's a technicality, but a pretty big one, by all standards. Charlotte doesn't seem phased, though, like she expected this.

She sits up in her seat, leans forward, chess player advancing her pawns. "That's my problem," she says, looking up. "And honestly, I wouldn't have dared come to you if I wasn't sure I could get you the votes."

_Right,_ Martha thinks, stays quiet for a bit. Oddly, in that moment, she remembers Shoe Lane. She remembers sitting outside on a bench, next to Clive, waiting for either of them to be called. He kept talking about how his moot had gone, the stuff that he'd said and the stuff he hadn't said, replaying it in his head while she sat in silence, looking at her feet. She must have tuned him out because she didn't notice when he stopped talking, until he gently, briefly, put a hand on her knee.

'Do you think there's a chance we might both get in?' he asked as she turned her head to look at him. She found him staring right back, unexpectedly close. She sighed.

'No.'

It killed her, a bit, because she knew what that meant. She had double the amount of things to prove, she knew, and not enough time to do so. The moot had come and gone, not particularly bad but not particularly well for either of them, she guessed, and if it wasn't the both of them, well, she knew who was more likely to win on a draw.

She felt his lips against hers before she could really understand what he was about to do, unexpectedly soft and tentative, just shy of deepening the kiss, his hand against the side of her face, pulling her closer. It wasn't like the hungry, hot, get-each-other-naked-as-quick-as-we-can things she'd imagined, frankly (because yes, of course, she'd thought about it; he wasn't her type but at the end of the day, they had spent the last six months practically living together in their room in Chambers, so of course, it'd crossed her mind) but it felt nice, strangely quiet and intimate. It was the first time he kissed her, she remembers.

He pulled away and she raised an eyebrow at him, a short laugh escaping her lips.

'What?' he asked, looking away. She chased his look and realised, to her own astonishment, that that was shyness, _right there_ , in his eyes, against all odds: the first glimpse she ever got at the _real Clive Reader._ He quickly found his footing again, though, raising an eyebrow back at her. 'Since we're not going to be working together anymore…' he added, didn't finish his sentence, just cocked his head to the side, waited.

She laughed, loud, genuine, shaking her head at him. 'Since we're not going to be working together anymore, what, Clive?' she asked, then, mischievous, their body so very close on the bench. It was getting dark already, day setting around them, few people walking past, going home. 'You thought a quick fuck was in order?'

It was his turn to laugh, this time, staring right into her eyes, looking secretly glad she hadn't taken this the wrong way. 'Who said anything about quick, Marth?'

She laughed again but quickly looked away, feeling herself go a bit pink in the cheeks. Well, she guessed, if (or when – at this point, she obviously didn't think it would take them fifteen years) it happened, she actually _hoped_ it wouldn't be quick, to tell the truth, but –

'Come on,' Clive winked at her; she bit her lip. 'Tell me, you haven't thought about it.'

She opened her mouth and shut it, felt suddenly drawn to him, ready to lean in and let him know how much, exactly, she had indeed thought about it when suddenly, she spotted Billy walking down the street, right there behind his shoulder. She froze and from the look on her face, she saw him freeze too, turn around just as Billy reached the both of them. His look went from herself to Clive, then back again; her heart was hammering in her chest; he took what felt like a century to speak.

'You're in,' he said.

Neither of them reacted, neither of them knowing who the good news was addressed to. He'd stopped closer to Clive, she thought, it must have been meant for him.

'Oi, did you hear me?' Billy asked, rolling his eyes at them. 'You're in, both of you. Now, go on, and be in at eight tomorrow.'

She felt her hand automatically reach her mouth to keep herself from screaming, all thoughts of Clive forgotten. It was a few, extra seconds before she tuned back to reality, felt herself madly grinning at him, like she couldn't even believe it.

'Well,' Clive said, after a bit, smiling back at her, his shoulder bumping against hers. 'Looks like we are going to be working together, after all,' he added and she laughed, shook her head at him. 'It makes me happy,' he joked, smirking. 'But it also makes me so, incredibly sad.'

She burst out laughing, pretending to roll her eyes in disbelief.

Clive laughed, too, put his hand on her knee again, pushing himself up before offering her a hand. 'Come on, _Northern lass,_ let's go get drunk.'

She smiled, took his hand and got drunk with him, she remembers, but didn't _stay over_ until years later, in Nottingham, and frankly, there are times when she does wonder what would have happened, maybe, how her life would have turned out if she had. Today, she sits in silence and holds Charlotte's gaze as she thinks about the last time she got voted into Chambers, her thumb nervously playing with the ring on her finger. She had fun at the bar, being honest with herself. Lots of fun, so yeah, it's tempting but it's not like before, though, it's tempting but not obvious, or secure and even if Charlotte does have the votes, it's a risk to take, a decision to make; she's never been really good at making decisions, she just -

"I'm trying to get pregnant," she says, catching Charlotte's gaze.

Finally, she thinks, she sees surprise in the other woman's eyes. _I'm pregnant, can you sell that?_ she remembers the look Billy threw her, that ability he seemed to have to know everything but the right thing to say. _Well,_ Martha thinks, _almost everything._

Charlotte stays silent for a while before she smiles, leans back in her chair. "And that's supposed to what? Make me go back on my offer? You're not even actually pregnant."

Martha catches herself frowning a bit, guesses that wasn't the reaction she expected, guesses -

"Listen," Charlotte starts, accentuates her point with a finger. "When I was about thirteen, fourteen years old, I had a dentist appointment that Dad was supposed to take me to, so I went to court to meet him after school. I was in the gallery, it was a murder trial – pretty gross, you know, the guy had slaughtered his girlfriend with a kitchen knife, but with discussions at home, frankly, I didn't think it was anything out the ordinary," she laughs. "You were defending the guy."

There's a pause in her speech but Martha doesn't open her mouth to counter, this time. She's learnt to listen, sometimes, to what the client has to say.

"You were like, what, twenty-four?" she goes on, smiles. "Dad was one of the best barristers in the country, a Q.C., he was _relentless_ with you, but you never gave up. I kept creeping back into the courtroom every evening after school and you were just – I'd seen many people go up against Dad before, they all gave up or let their nerves get the better of them. You never did."

_Yeah, right,_ Martha thinks, smiling. _Plead, it's common sense, Marth,_ Clive used to say, before he understood there was no talking her out of anything. "Did I win?"

"God, no," Charlotte laughs. "Guy got life, thank God," she adds and Martha somehow catches herself laughing, too. She pauses, looks up at her. "I've wanted to clerk for you for almost twenty years, I'm not going to reconsider that just because you and Clive Reader want a fucking kid."

After finally starting to drink her coffee when it reached an acceptable temperature, Martha feels herself almost choking on it. With difficulty, she swallows, finally, throws a confused look at Charlotte.

Charlotte sighs: " _Please_ ," she says, quickly, but Martha frowns, insists. They've been _careful._ It shouldn't be - "You were waiting for him outside court the other day," she says, sighing. "Made a wild guess; the look on you face just confirmed it, thanks."

_Shit. Okay,_ she thinks, there's no denying it, so: "That –" she starts, again.

"Isn't public knowledge," Charlotte interrupts, looking at her across the table. "I know. It doesn't need to be. Just like what you intend to do with your own spare time and body shouldn't be of anyone's business."

It usually is, though, for women and frankly, it's a bit unsettling that now, it doesn't seem to be. She expected her last objection to close the deal against her, expected Charlotte to go back on her offer, but now, it really is up to her, isn't it? On cue, Charlotte gets up, out of nowhere, like back on that bench, like she's done with her speech now, can rest her case.

"Sleep on it," she says, grabbing her takeaway cup from the table. "Talk it over with your new beau, or whatever you two do. Call me tomorrow."

_._

That night, she does the exact opposite, actually. She doesn't tell Clive, or talk it over with him, and she certainly doesn't sleep. She stares up at the ceiling all night deciding that she should walk out of there while she still can, deciding what a terrible idea this is.

The next morning, she calls Charlotte and says "okay," just like that. It clicks.

When she steps past the courtroom doors with her gown on and her wig under her arm, it feels like she's back from the dead.

.

The thing with Clive, well, it's not a public thing. It's an unspoken mutual understanding between the two of them that they don't want to become a thing people care about. She has no interest in becoming one half of a legal power-couple so they ignore each other to a somewhat comical extent every time they're in the robbing room at the same time, quite unsuccessfully if the look CW throws her once after Clive's left is any indication, loosely asking about the "tension in the air". Martha finds that she doesn't really mind people _guessing_ , she just doesn't want to confirm it.

In court, well, it's a learning curve to get her confidence and her footing back, but she does. She takes things one case at a time, frankly, but eventually, it gets better and she stops thinking about Sean rotting in jail all the time. Eventually, she finds herself able to laugh with CW again ( _Harriet_ is always a good topic of conversation) and she meets new people in Chambers, too. She gets reasonably along with Vanessa, the other barrister who shares her room. The girl's quiet when she works which is quite liberating after fifteen years spent pretending not to hear Clive as he whined and commented on his cases every ten minutes. Now, Martha feels like she's the loud one, actually, when she listens to music which she's pretty sure can be heard past her headphones.

It's not like Clive's whines and attempts at distracting her really leave though, it's just that they move from her work desk to her kitchen table and get much harder to resist. Over time, they find their routine. There's work, and then there's them, and they try to keep that as separate as they can, which frankly isn't always a success with the hours they pull. When they work from home, they split her kitchen table in two, Chinese wall in between. Anything shared in confidence may _not, ever,_ be used in a court of law. Also, sex is a good way to relieve stress, she finds.

At work, she reconnects with people, too. She bumps into him on her second day (literally bumps into him, with files in her arms and her phone perched between the side of her face and her shoulder and everything falls off at the same time). Nick - as he explains mid-way through an awkward apology, trying to help her pick everything up - apparently landed at her new Chambers after Shoe Lane and has been there for the last three years. The boy still looks ridiculously young but has somehow graduated from saving the puppies to saving actual people, and two months later, when she wins a case and feels in a celebratory mood, even has money to pay her drinks.

They laugh and joke and he admits he and Niamh have been together for two years which truly makes her smile, the kind of happy ending you only see in movies. She has a few drinks in when she gets a text from Clive, asking if she wants to come over. It's past eleven in the evening so clearly he's not asking her over for tea.

She keeps listening to Nick, though, uncrossing and crossing her legs again, automatically.

_I'm at the pub_ , she texts back, placing the phone down against her thigh.

Her phone keeps vibrating at regular intervals throughout the next half hour, although Nick doesn't seem to notice. She waits until he goes to the toilet to check. She scrolls down the screen, bites her lip.

11:34 p.m.

_That's a shame._

_I miss you._

11:35 p.m.

_Well, also I want you._

11:42 p.m.

_See, you would leave the pub and come over. It would be dark, already._

_We would kiss at the door. I would pull you in and have you up against the wall. My lips against your neck, fingers between your legs._

11:55 p.m.

_And you know how good I am with my fingers._

11:58 p.m.

_I don't think we'd make it past the hallway, this time._

_I would hike your skirt up your legs –_

She doesn't get to finish the messages because someone, in front of her, coughs. _Nick,_ she shakes her head, back from the loo. She bites her lip again, looks away.

"You okay?" he asks, an amused glance on his face.

She responds on autopilot. "I, uh. I think I've got to go."

"Somewhere to be?" Nick says, amused, raising an eyebrow at her. He makes a show of looking at his watch. Yes, it's late, she thinks, rolling her eyes.

But: "Yes," she just says, reaching for her bag.

She makes it to Clive's about twenty minutes later; he opens the door and she kisses him, open mouthed, before he can say anything. He's a bit shell-shocked for the next few seconds before he finally follows her lead, closing the door behind them and pushing her against it. He's working on pulling down one of her stockings when he breaks the kiss for a second, raises an eyebrow at her. "Had fun at the pub?" he says and she lets out a chuckle, nods.

"Had a couple bottles of wine."

Clive laughs, his breath against her neck. She moves to the side to give him better access but his lips barely graze her skin, teasing; it's infuriating. "On your own?"

She presses against him, finds his hand on her hip and moves it between her thighs (he doesn't get to send her texts like that when it's late and she's drunk, and then take his time, for fuck's sake). Her pencil skirt gets in the way so she lets him hike it up and lift it over her head, then it's back against the wall she goes. "Nah, with Nick," she says, as an afterthought.

He raises an eyebrow, his mouth against her collarbone, fingers pushing her underwear aside.

"Nick?"

He says that but then his fingers find her clit and it gets hard to concentrate, she throws her head back against the door. "The pupil, he works in Chambers, it's –"

Instinctively, she slips a hand inside his pants - which does seem to get his attention, from the look he throws her, breath caught in his throat. In all honesty, she finds that she really doesn't care about this conversation. In fact, she doesn't really care for the foreplay he seems to have tried to instigate, here. She shifts a bit, thinks that what she wants is him inside her _right now_ , actually. "You were out with _Nick_?" Clive asks, slightly laughing, though, slowing his movements a bit.

She sighs, heavy, shaking her head. She's pushed his pants down, has him strong in her hand, inches away from where she wants him to be, bites her lip. "Clive, for God's sake, do you want to fuck me or not?" she asks, pressing against him. _Okay, it may sound a bit desperate, but -_

Clive laughs, again, whispers in her ear. "I thought the texts were pretty clear."

He pushes into her then, suddenly, and she responds with a loud moan that she's pretty sure can be heard by his neighbours down the corridor but frankly, it feels to good to care. Clive doesn't move after that, though, for a bit, just stays there, deep inside her until she opens her eyes, crosses his gaze.

"Hey," he says, pushing a strand of hair off her face, and she smiles, lets out a quiet laugh.

"Hey."

He pushes into her again and this time she has to bite on his finger to supress another moan. They're in a very precarious, somewhat uncomfortable position, she realises, one of her legs hooked over his hip, his body holding her in place as her other foot barely touches the floor, the wooden moulding of the inside of his front door digging into her lower back but every time he moves, the angle is just _right there_ , so all other concerns go, frankly, out the window.

They do end up in bed, eventually, for round two, and frankly, she doesn't know if it's the orgasms or the alcohol or the endorphins from winning her case but she feels a bit drunk, still, sleepy and lazy. It's past 3 a.m. now and she's got court tomorrow (she doesn't really want to be there when her alarm goes off in three hours) yet, she tries to keep her eyes open, her head on Clive's chest, the lamp on his bedside table shading a soft light on his face.

"I love you," she says, looking up at him. He laughs, his hand trailing up and down her arm.

"You're drunk."

She laughs, gently slaps his shoulder, says: "I'll take that back, then."

Clive laughs, too. A moment passes; she almost closes her eyes. "So, you were out with _Nick?_ " he asks, again, and this time she rolls her eyes, glances up at him.

"Yes."

He raises an eyebrow. "The one that pushed me down the stairs?"

"You were high and you tripped."

"We seem to have different recollections –"

She interrupts him with a glare, moving up to face him. She makes sure he stops talking before resting her head back down. "You do that again and I'll kill you, by the way," she says, after a moment, somewhat mumbling against his skin. "I'm not sleeping with a cokehead."

Clive chuckles, his chest shaking a bit. "Didn't seem to bother you bef–"

She moves her head ninety degrees again to face him, resting it on the back of her hand, dead serious. "Finish that sentence and I'll murder you in your sleep, make it look like an overdose, and get away with it."

Clive bursts out laughing, shakes his head at her. "I haven't used since you got silk and I didn't, Marth."

She frowns, arching an eyebrow at him, trying to read if he's telling the truth. Oddly, she thinks he is. "Good," she just says, then, lying back down. She closes her eyes, sighs. "I'm sleeping now," she adds and hears Clive chuckle, again.

.

Of course, there are bad days, still. It's the end of March when she gets her first big loss. The case made it to Chambers months ago through a solicitor friend of Nick's as a domestic violence gone wrong, except it quickly becomes more than he can chew. The husband was a high-ranking staffer within the Ministry of Defence and the wife is four months pregnant when they arrest her in the middle of the street with a kitchen knife in her hand and blood all over her nightgown. Martha gets pulled onto the case a few weeks before the trial starts and the media is already all over it. During the trial itself, she has to sleep at Clive's after she finds a journalist in front of her building on the first night, asking if she really thinks her client is innocent. Still, it's a good case, it needs a silk with a backbone, and so it goes to her.

The client, when she meets her, doesn't say a word.

"Does she talk?" she asks Nick on the car park in front of the prison.

"Sometimes," he sighs. "She begged me to help her keep the baby."

"In _jail?_ Shit, that's eighteen months, Nick."

He sighs. "I know."

The client shakes like a leaf every time a man speaks a bit too loud during trial. The client cries when Martha takes the stand and questions the doctors about the fifteen hospital visits in 2013, the broken bones and the bruises and the numerous ' _falls'._ The client looks away when they question her son about what was going on at home, and what kind of person his Dad was.

The client never talks.

The client is charged with murder. The client is found guilty of manslaughter. The client gets five years.

The client screams.

.

She sits in the dark, in her apartment, with a bottle of whiskey. She wants to get drunk tonight, and wine's too slow for that.

It's a good hour later when Clive uses his key to get in – she hears the lock turning before he steps in; it's the first time he does that, use his key. He's had one for years, to tell the truth, for when she loses hers (she has to admit it does happen pretty regularly), but it feels oddly intimate, now. He doesn't turn on the lights, the couch dips as he sits next to her, waits until she talks – she doesn't. Two shots later, she reaches below a fourth of the bottle and he takes it away. "I think you've had enough," he says.

She disagrees but finds that she doesn't have the energy to fight him.

"Marth," Clive starts. She doesn't know if it's the alcohol or the fact that she's not sure she's ever going to be able to live with herself, but she feels physically sick, right now. "Marth, you got _five years_ on a murder charge, that's one hell of a w–"

He means _win_ , she guesses, and that makes her feel nauseous, too. "She's not going to be able to keep the baby," she slurs, reaching for her pack of cigarettes on the table. She's clumsy, lets it fall, Clive sighs, takes that away, too. "It's the one thing she asked us and it's just –"

She doesn't finish her sentence, sits in silence with her empty drink in hand, fingers dancing against the glass. She feels like crying. She feels like screaming. She feels like she can't breathe, strangled sobs escaping her lips. It's stupid, she thinks to herself, she shouldn't let this get to her, shouldn't –

"She just wanted to keep the baby," she repeats, again, and doesn't have the strength to shake Clive off when he put his arm around her and pulls her into a hug, her tears falling against his shirt.

"Shh," he says, and: "I know, I know," he mutters in her hair when she tells him how much she hates this job, how much she doesn't want to be here, how much she should have left when she could, how much she hates him sometimes, too.

"I know," he whispers. "But you'll get up tomorrow and it won't hurt as much, and you'll go and help someone else, okay?"

Eventually, she runs out of tears, quiet and mutters: "Okay," too.

.

It's another couple of months before Clive gets sick. They spend a Sunday afternoon at one of his sisters' house for his nephew's birthday and with the change in temperature as well as the kids running around with bacteria all over their hands, he catches a bout of stomach flu.

Now, she's had the bloody thing before and although she remembers it to be quite frustrating and uncomfortable, she's not quite sure it warrants the three days Clive spends lying on her couch, flicking through obscure TV cable channels, whining and acting like he's on the brink of death. On the phone, Jo calls it the "man flu" and swears it's real. Martha is frankly tempted to agree.

Of course, because they more or less live together now (they don't; he still has his apartment and she insists on finding excuses to send him home every once in a while to prove that they don't, actually, live together), it's no surprise when a few days after he gets better, she wakes up feeling gross and nauseous and throws up her breakfast in the toilet twenty minutes later. Clive has enough consideration to knock on the door, hold her hair back, and hand her tissues.

"Sorry," he says, giving her his apologetic puppy look. She shoots him a death glare in return, sitting on her heels wondering if she's going to puke again – she feels sick and has a headache and her period must be coming because her tits bloody hurt, and frankly, she's not in the mood.

"This is your fault," she tells him, which doesn't help her current situation but does alleviate a bit of frustration as she sits back – still nauseous, but probably not throwing up again, she decides – and wipes her mouth.

His hand gently rubs her shoulder; she tries to hate him, really does, but she finds herself slightly leaning into his touch. "You should stay home today," he whispers as his hand travels down to rub her back a little; it's odd but it helps.

That being said, she spent too much time making fun of him last week for her ego to allow her to give in to the freaking flu so she does what women do, shakes her head and gets up, reluctantly, flushing the toilet and reaching for her toothbrush by the sink. Clive rolls his eyes and sighs.

.

The thing is, three days later, she's still sick. Clive felt significantly better on day four so she holds high hopes when she goes to bed, until she wakes up in the morning and feels like bloody death again. She's in the kitchen attempting to swallow biscotti when she has to hold onto the counter, her knees almost giving out, vision suddenly blurring before her eyes. Clive catches her right before she faints, his arm around her shoulders as he walks her back to her bedroom, helps her sit on the bed. He places his hand behind her head until she's fully lying down; she'd be tempted to fight him, if only she had the energy to do so.

"Jesus, you're white as a sheet, Marth," he says. The back of his hand is against her forehead, trying to old-school assess if she's running a fever – there is actual medical equipment for that, she thinks, rolling her eyes – his other palm pressed against her shoulder. She shifts.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Clive laughs, holding her in place.

She sighs, tries to move again. He won't budge. "Look, I can't stay in, alright? I've got this bail –"

"Marth, you're not going to work for a fucking bail hearing, that's what juniors are for."

She shoots him a glare. "Clive."

"Marth, you almost fainted back there, you're sick, and exhausted," he argues, softly caressing her cheek. "You're not going to work today; I'll tie you to this bed myself if I have to."

She raises an eyebrow and a staring contest ensues, which he wins by a large margin. She's exhausted, just wants to sleep, closes her eyes. " _Fine,"_ she sighs, extends her hand. "Pass me my phone, I need to call Charlotte."

.

She wakes up again around eleven, slips on a jumper and pads to the kitchen, turns on the radio and goes for another coffee. Her stomach seems to have settled a bit, the dizziness as well; she takes her things and heads for the couch, scrolling through the news on her phone. It's spring now, almost summer, the sun is back higher up in the sky and it feels like time has flown by so quickly since she started work again in January that when she stops, it's like she's just woken up to find out that the snow has finally melted on the edge of the streets.

It's been almost a year since Billy's death, she realises, her look falling on the calendar. It's the 8th of May, now: a couple of weeks to go and they'll be there, a million miles away from where they were last year. She doesn't know what he'd think of them all. She went back to work and she thinks he'd have liked that, the way he said she'd always be a 'Miss' for him. She remembers standing outside the hospital smoking cigarettes and telling Clive to fuck off, the look on his face, the memories swirling in her brain. She still thinks about it, somehow, the way she felt, back then – she's not very good at forgiveness – but at least they're trying, she thinks.

She doesn't know how the thought gets into her head. It's the verb _try_ , maybe. Or maybe, it's the days and months scrolling up and down in front of her eyes.

_No_ , she thinks. _Wait._

The last time, _okay_ , she breathes, the last time was the Bennet trial. She was annoyed – as if she needed that, on top of the stress of everything. That was the end of March, because it was close to Clive's birthday and they couldn't properly celebrate until a couple weeks later, when the trial was over. Then –

Then, she guesses, looking at the calendar, the next time should have been, well, almost three weeks ago.

_Shit._

She didn't get her period, three weeks ago, because she was in Birmingham for a trial and would remember if she had.

Shit. Shit, _shit_.

For the first time in days, she runs to the bathroom without the intent to puke. She throws the door of the bathroom cabinet open, swears she has an old one somewhere from when she thought there might have been something back in November and –

.

She tries to call him but stops herself. He's in court.

She walks around the apartment, her heart racing in her chest, doesn't know what to do with herself. Grabs her keys and runs out.

.

The village is different in Spring. Last summer, there were big blossoms and green trees and heat that tainted the back of her neck. Now, the plants and branches have little buds hanging off them like the long lost children of Christmas decorations, colours brought on by the light of the passing sun. The wind hits the back of her jacket, she pulls it tighter around her shoulders.

It feels a bit odd, being here. She drove instinctively, passing trucks and people going away for the weekend, and now, she doesn't know what to say. She's never been good at that kind of thing.

There's an old lady a few tombs to her left, doing some cleaning. She takes the dry flowers and dead pots away, nicely setting down some new ones. Well, Martha doesn't have any new flowers, she guesses, but at least she can clean, too.

There's no bin bag so she sets out to clean up a bit by placing all the rotten plants at her feet, tells herself she'll take everything to the bigger bins outside when she leaves. She works for a good ten minutes, in silence, kind of likes the result. A pot of geraniums seems to have survived through winter so she keeps those, untangles the ribbon she left last year from a few dead plants and puts its back where it belongs: it looks better, now.

It looks better, and ten minutes have passed, and she still hasn't figured out what to do with herself.

She guesses she doesn't have to say anything, but then what was the point in coming here? It just felt like this imperative, this place where she needed to be, this one person that she needed to tell. It's stupid, she knows: she doesn't think he can hear her.

_William Charles Lamb,_ she reads, again, like she did last year. Clive was there, she remembers, he took her in his arms and cried on her shoulder. She closes her eyes.

"I'm pregnant," she says, pauses. "You're the first one I told last time, so I –"

She trails off. It feels stupid, talking to herself like this, in a graveyard but –

"I miss you," her voice whispers, shakes as she speaks, barely escaping her lips.

Instinctively, she feels herself sinking down to her knees, sitting on her heels to be at the grave's height, being able to see the headstone when she looks straight ahead. She touches the ground, pulls out grass, wipes her hand on her jeans.

"I," she starts, shakes her head. "It's Clive's," she smiles, adds: " _Again,_ " and almost laughs at the thought, at what Billy would have thought if –

The sun hides behind the clouds; the ground becomes darker under her feet. She bites her lip, closing and opening her eyes.

"It's different, though, we've been –"

She doesn't know how to put it. Doesn't want to tell Billy they've actually been _trying_ because it sounds bloody ridiculous, even to her own ears. She wonders what the hell they were thinking, last September – drinking, perhaps, – when they decided to –

She smiles, lets out a short chuckle. "He gave me this," she says, instead, and raises her right hand, turns it over to show the ring, the diamond on her finger. It almost makes her laugh and she thinks Billy would have found this funny, too. Romantic, though, and he was always a romantic at heart, wasn't he? "Said it was his grandmother's, I –"

She's going off track, here, that's not what she wanted to get at, that's not –

"I think we're going to keep it and I just –" she trails off, purses her lips. "I hope Clive knows what to do with it because I really, really don't," she says, catching herself laughing softly and feeling like she's about to crawl down and cry at the same time. She breathes, closes her eyes, smiles, tells herself it's the hormones. "Billy," she whispers, to the wind.

She stays a bit more, silent, thinking. There's a baby in her belly again and it feels weird, so, so weird to be back to that same point almost four years later, wondering what the hell she's doing with her life, exactly. She'd thought it'd be clear. She'd thought if she did get pregnant again, she'd feel happy and ecstatic and would run to tell Clive. Instead, she's here, in a graveyard, laughing and weeping at the same time, wondering what the hell came through her brain when she agreed to this. They're not ready, by any means, they're children themselves at most, and yet –

She smiles, quiet, her hand drawing circles on her stomach.

Eventually, she gets back up, a few minutes later when her tears have dried, wiping dirt off her knees.

"It helps, doesn't it?"

She jumps a bit at the voice, it's female, stretches from a few metres away to her left. She turns to face it and sees the old lady from earlier, her face is tired but happy, the hood of her coat drawn to protect her face from the wind.

"Talking to them, I mean," she adds, her voice oddly cheery, lines moving on her face as she speaks. She walks a couple of steps closer to Martha, a couple of steps away from the grave she was looking at earlier. "I'm not an idiot," she smiles, again, nods. "I know they're not going to answer, but –"

Martha smiles politely, standing awkwardly with her jeans dirty at the knees, and the nausea that's threatening to come back triggered by the sudden move of her body.

"Arthur," the old woman goes on, looking back at the grave behind her for a second. "My husband, we were always fighting, bickering over every little thing so now, it's stupid but I come here and argue with him in my head," she smiles, shaking her head. "He made me laugh," she adds, like an afterthought, trailing off.

"I'm sorry," Martha says, because suddenly she really is, but -

"Oh, no, don't be," the woman starts, smiles. "I told him the bloody cigarettes would kill him," she laughs and Martha smiles back, suddenly feeling very awkward about the pack that she still has in her pocket. "Anyway," the old lady says when her laughter dies out, looking away. "Sorry, I shouldn't bother young people with my stories," she starts backing away.

Martha smiles, shaking her head, slightly tempted to correct the use of the word _young_ to refer to herself but then the woman turns around again, her gaze trailing over her face.

"You know, no one really knows what to do with them," she says and it takes Martha a second to understand what she's referring to, not the people in the graves but – "They come out of you and you love them, and you do your best so that they don't turn into drug addicts or murderers," she says, adds as an afterthought: "Most of them don't." Martha can't help but let out a short laugh, covering her mouth to repress it.

"I," she pauses, smiles. "Thanks, I guess."

"Congratulations."

.

She tries to call him again when she gets home, but realises she needs to tell him face to face.

.

She makes it to the pub at quarter past six, sees Clive leaning against the bar to place an order as she snakes her way past the crowd to stand next to him, touches his arm to signal her presence.

He turns around, sees her. "Hey," he says, smiling. It's always slightly uncomfortable with him in public, like this, because she never knows how to interact. They can't be too close so as not to raise suspicions and can't be too far either because they're supposed to be friends now, after all, so she settles on leaning in next to him, her arm brushing against his. "Feeling better? You definitely _look_ like you're feeling better," he says, trying to get Pat – the barman –'s attention. Pat nods at the both of them and raises a couple of fingers, mouthing 'two seconds' at Clive.

Clive nods, too, glances at her. Suddenly, she can't quite recall why he's asking that, this morning feeling so far remote from everything. She forgot, he still thinks she's _sick_. "Yeah, much," she says. "Clive –"

"What d'youse want?" Pat interrupts in his characteristic Irish twang reaching over to them. He's about their age but for some reason, every time she thinks of him, she thinks of him when he was younger and had just moved over from Belfast, and started at the pub. He took over the Crown about five years ago when Harry retired, and knows pretty much everything about every barrister in London.

(He knows about _them,_ actually, since about three months ago when he caught them in a rather _uncomfortable_ position late one night in the corridor that leads to the ladies. 'Get a feckin' room,' he said.)

"Lager for me," Clive says, turning to her. "G&T again?"

She nods, automatically. Over the last few weeks, it's oddly become her drink of choice after years of red wine, and –

_Shit_ , she thinks, is she the only idiot who _craves_ fucking gin and tonics? Is that why -

Plus, shit, again, she can't _drink_. Before, she can open her mouth – and to say what, exactly, she doesn't know; she hasn't told him yet, so - Clive's already passed the order. It occurs to her that she needs to pull him aside – that's why she came here, after all – so when Pat quickly sets his beer on the counter, she opens her mouth and grabs Clive's forearm. Before she can say anything, though, his phone rings and he rolls his eyes, pulls away. "Sorry, I've got to take this, do you mind?" he tells her, sliding over his wallet to her as he grabs his beer, stepping away, disappearing into the crowd.

Well, no, she guesses she doesn't _mind_ but –

Pat smiles at her, about to grab a glass. "Wait," she says, before she can really think. He stops mid-movement, throws her a questioning look. "Just tonic, please," running a hand over her face, wondering how the hell she's going to tell Clive, now.

Pat nods, putting back the bottle of gin and handing her a small Sprite. "Work tomorrow?" he asks, small talk-y.

"No," she says, automatically, because no, she doesn't have work tomorrow, tomorrow's Saturday and even though she _is_ in court on Monday, she could have a drink but –

"Then, what's the –" She hears him say and stop abruptly mid-thought, suddenly _staring_ her up and down. It last for a short moment, she tries to hold his gaze but can't, bites her lip, glances down, avoids his look, hands him Clive's card.

It's too late, though, maybe it's just written on her face, she thinks, because he _knows._ "Well, _shit_ ," he laughs, taking the card from her hands. He slides the machine to her, she types in Clive's pin, automatically, hands it back, finally looking up. "Youse don't waste any time, do yeh?" he laughs and leaves her smiling awkwardly, pocketing the card and receipt back.

She's pretty tempted to argue that it kind of took them over fifteen years to get here so time is, indeed, a thing that they're pretty good at wasting but holds her tongue. Instead, she looks up and says: "Well, he doesn't know," pointing at the direction where Clive left with her head. "So, don't tell him, okay?"

Pat laughs. "Hey, what kind of barman do you think I am?"

.

She gets caught up talking to Nick (who ended up taking this morning's bail hearing – she thanks him, profusely) as well as Bethany and Jake (who lament that they don't see her enough, these days), so it's a good hour before it occurs to her that she really needs to get her hands on Clive again. She can't see him anywhere so decides to step out for a smoke and call him, see if he's already gone home. She's got his wallet, she thinks, so he can't have gone that far.

She leans against the wall outside the pub and fishes for her pack of cigarettes in her coat pocket, pulls it out and: " _Fuck_ ," she says, closing her eyes.

They're not cigarettes. They're nicotine gums. She threw her pack in the bin when she came out of the cemetery and got the gums at Boots before coming here.

She gets a gum out and chews angrily before placing it back on the pub's windowsill, reaching for her phone. She hates being pregnant already.

Before she can dial, Clive pushes the door of the pub open, materialises in front of her eyes. "Hey," he says, quickly looking around, making sure they're alone before dropping a quick peck on her lips. "Pat said you were looking for me?"

Yeah? _Barman's honour,_ _my arse_ , she thinks, rolling her eyes.

"You going home?" Clive goes on, oblivious. "Can I have my wallet back?"

She pulls it out of her pocket and hands it out to him, letting her hand drop at her side afterwards, unsure as to what to do with her fingers. She's usually always holding a cigarette when they stand outside like this; it's a bit weird to have both of her hands free.

Clive pockets his wallet back and her glance drifts to the pack of gums on the windowsill, his following suit. He takes it in his hands before she can say anything, beams at her when he realises what it is.

"Shit, Marth, you're _quitting_?" he asks as if this is really exciting, surprising news (well, in fairness, she guesses it would be if only she didn't have bigger, more exciting - terrifying – news under her belt).

"Yeah, don't remind me," she says automatically, sarcastic, about to bring her fingers to her mouth, before realising, again, they're not holding anything.

Suddenly, she looks around, pretending to listen to Clive as he speaks (no doubt telling her all about the benefits of quitting that bad habit of hers) when she realises that this is _it._ They're alone now, outside, in a quiet place, _face to face_ , it shouldn't be this hard to just _tell him_. She's done it before, it's just a few syllables out of her mouth, just –

"I need to tell you something," she says, stops, interrupting. He goes quiet and frowns, smiles at her, slightly amused.

"What?" he laughs, pausing a bit. "Don't tell me Jake's converted you and you've stopped drinking, too."

His words mildly register in her brain, she can't seem to be able to make herself cross his gaze (or say the words, for that matter).

"Yeah," she speaks, automatically. He laughs, asks why, _something;_ it's hard to tell because her own words are trapped in the back of her throat and –

"For the next forty weeks or so," she interrupts him and the world frankly goes oddly silent around her. "Well, thirty-five, I guess," she amends.

Clive _stares._ She's not sure he really _understands_ , isn't sure –

Her eyes open and finally – _finally –_ she looks up at him. _One, two, three,_ she counts, says it. "I'm pregnant, Clive."

For what feels like an eternity, frankly, Clive doesn't say anything. Just stares at her until slowly, she sees him bring his hand to his mouth, then drop it again. "What?"

"I'm pregnant," she repeats, holding his gaze.

It's funny: he reminds her of herself this morning, the way he can't seem to formulate coherent thoughts. This isn't the first time they have this conversation, they should have gotten better at it, somehow, shouldn't they? "Are you –" he pauses, expressionless, motionless. "Are you sure?"

She smirks, glances up at him. "As sure as three tests from three different brands can be, Clive –"

And suddenly, it clicks. Seems to down on him, somehow, and he _smiles._ _Beams_ , actually, a sort of stunned, speechless, disbelieving look on his face – stark contrast with last time, she guesses. His hands rise in front of his mouth again, then run over his face, the back of his head – he just keeps smiling, shaking his head at her. "You're _pregnant_?" he says, again, and she's not sure if it's actually still a question or just him wanting to say it out loud – he's loud, actually, she hopes no one's overheard.

"I mean, I'm only four or five weeks in, so we're not –" _out of the woods,_ she thinks but he interrupts her before she can finish her sentence – isn't sure of the merits of this expression, anyway.

His look falls down upon her again, she notices him step closer. When he speaks, she swears she can see stars in his eyes. "We're having a baby."

She sighs, wants to moderate his enthusiasm because what if – "Clive –"

Clive doesn't seem to care, though. Clive doesn't seem to care about anything else that makes any logical sense, right this minute. "We're having a _baby_!"

She wants to rolls her eyes but can't help but smile, bites her lip. She breathes, again, _one, two, three._ "Yes," she whispers, barely daring to speak. "We're having a baby."

It all happens very quickly but she feels his hands by her sides and her feet leaving the ground as she half laughs/half screams her lungs out. He kisses her neck, her mouth, every inch of her skin he can reach – they're in fucking public, for God's sake, outside the pub, no less, anyone could see them and yet she can't help but laugh –

"Put me down!" she screams but he doesn't seem like he's going to do that anytime soon, instead swirls around with her in his arms, his hands under her thighs.

"We're having a baby!"

He says, again, and she laughs so hard, grins at him, at them. "Clive you're forty years old with a bad knee, put me –"

She guesses he hears her, eventually, but instead of dropping her to the ground, he sets her down on a table outside, standing between her legs. She chuckles, shakes her head. "You're insane," she says, biting her lip.

"I love you," he smiles, kisses her lips. "I love you, Martha Costello."

"More than The Clash?"

He bursts out laughing, standing in front of her and yet keeps shaking his head, like he still can't quite believe it. "God, _definitely_ more than The Clash," he smiles, against her lips.

She's always liked smiling kisses, the way she can feel his lips curve up against hers, like nothing could ever get in their way. He leans in again, his hand traveling under her shirt, against her skin, covering her midriff.

"We're having a baby, Marth," she hears him say in her ear and she knows she shouldn't but she nods, again, and beams up at him, too.

They're having a baby, she breathes.

.


	9. ix

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what used to be Chapter 8. I've split what used to be Chapter 6 in two upon edit (and added a few things), so if you've already read 8, feel free to skip :).

ix.

_._

_Hey, mummy, what is fair?_

_(…)_

_And where do we get air?_

_And, mummy, can I have that big elephant over there?_

Dat Dere – Bobby Timmons

As covered by Rickie Lee Jones

.

.

She wishes it could have been a game of chess. Pawns, queens, and kings across the board, knights moving in Ls according to rules she could have learnt. Could have already known, perhaps, going in.

She would have liked it to be a song. It would have had rhythm, something to fill her ears when the shouts got too loud and she couldn't bring herself to speak. Sean used to fiddle with a guitar back in the day – because  _of course, he did_  – and he couldn't sing to save his life but frankly, it never mattered. She thinks she would have gone for  _Zombie,_ given the choice _._  Eerie. For the anger and the  _opinions_ , mostly.

Now, though, it's a low ambiance sound in a bar with dark, purple lighting that looks somewhere between a cocktail lounge and a strip club without strippers; the kind of place where people in suits snort coke in the bathrooms. She closes her eyes to the music, lets her head loll from left to right, fingers dancing over her glass.

She thinks that in another universe, she might have liked that song. Liked it like she likes rock, and guitar riffs, and boys singing about girls. She might have danced, even.

_Oh, you're so naïve, yet so –_

Clive woke her up in the middle of the night, once; she heard a whisper, his breath tickling the skin of her stomach, let out something between a sigh and a groan. It felt like four in the morning; it wasn't the first time.

'It doesn't even have a brain, yet,' she said, rolling her eyes and turning on her side so that he couldn't reach. 'Let alone hear you. Go back to sleep.'

She heard him huff a laugh as he climbed back up next to her, spooning and dropping a kiss against her hair. 'It's fine. Don't talk to her. She'll sound all posh like me.'

Clive had decided on the sex of the baby literally the minute after she'd told him, outside the pub, against all laws of biology and evidence. She kept repeating to him that  _if_ they were indeed having a baby, they probably wouldn't even know at the first ultrasound, let alone now when she wasn't even sure the bloody thing would make it in the first place. This information did not, however, seem to register in his brain. Favouring sleep over another nonsensical conversation of  _but I know, Marth, trust me,_  she closed her eyes and tried not to smile too large, listening to the regular sound of his breathing behind in her ear.

_Yeah,_ she thinks, now, eyeing the light gradation of white in her drink.  _So naïve, yet so -_

.

She likes that word,  _naïve,_ because it fits. For weeks on end, all she thought – all she could think about, really - was that she was going to lose it. It sounds a bit ridiculous, in hindsight (but everything always does, in hindsight, doesn't it?) but at the time, it seemed like the only thing that could possibly go wrong.

CW slides onto the stool next to hers, eyeing the drink that's already in front of her, eyeing Martha's too, as she sets her bag on the hook below the counter.

_I may say it was your fault, 'cause I know you could have done more. Oh, you're so naïve, yet so –_

She hates that song, she decides. It's vehement and accusatory, and no, she couldn't have done more. She did everything she could, in fact, did what she thought was most important.

Maybe that's the problem, isn't it?

.

CW doesn't say anything. Or at least, not  _yet._  They're coming, Martha knows, the questions, explanations, perhaps drunken admissions. When she got here, earlier, she ordered two gin and tonics.  _Two,_  because it seemed rude to ask someone else over on a Tuesday night and not have alcohol waiting.

'Wine?' Clive offered, innocently, one night when she got home after a very, very long day, forgetting –

He chuckled when she looked daggers at him, putting the glass away.

You see? Martha Costello, she's the kind of person who goes all in. She's a terrible poker player for this particular reason, because always going all in works very well until it doesn't, until your bluff is called. When she found out she was pregnant, she went all in, too (or all out, more like), quit the smoking and the drinking on the spot, because she'd already lost one, after all, so she wasn't going to half-arse this.

It's not that she thought one drink or one fag would kill it, per se, it's that she half-arses things like the Tony Paddick prosecution or the race for Head of Chambers: things she doesn't really want.

So, she quit the drinking as soon as she found out and yet, tonight, she finds herself in a bar with CW. The other woman reaches for her glass, brings it to her lips; Martha toys with hers, tracing the rim with the tip of her finger. The ice has melted by now; she kept passing it between her right and left hand for far too long, watching water slowly raise the liquid line. A sip, a cough, CW sets the glass back down.

"Jesus Christ," she says, throwing her a look. "Is there even any tonic in this?"

Martha glances down at her hands and answers with a shrug. She asked for a double, triple maybe. 'Get me drunk,' she told the barman behind the counter.

She remembers Clive, standing, shouting in the middle of her living room, and fights to blur out the memories, wishes she were old enough to forget. Distantly, she remembers how one day, she thought that they had yet to bloodily argue and how she wished she didn't have to be there when it happened. Well, she was. And, it hurt. And, she's not weak, she tells herself, he's not worth her crying over him. That glaze over her eyes, right now? It's just the hormones, she tells herself.

_It's such an ugly thing, for someone so beautiful, that every time you're on his side –_

_Oh for fuck's sake,_ she thinks and: "Will you change that fucking song?" she suddenly barks at the guy behind the counter. CW sniggers, throwing her a curious look – the barman rolls his eyes and hits  _next_  on Spotify.

.

It's a bit before CW speaks again, glancing at Martha's face, the look in her eyes, as she inspects her drink on the table. "You know there are actual medical procedures for what you're trying to do, here?" she says, laughing to herself. "1967, date mean anything to you?"

Martha clenches her jaw, sighs.

CW found out a few weeks ago: different trials, same afternoon, they ran into each other in the robbing room. Martha was taking her wig and gown off, Caroline was putting hers on. An offer for a fag, a weird look thrown sideways. Martha's fingers and brain still itched for a nicotine hand-holder, back then, so it was hard to turn down. The other woman shrugged as she took one from her pack and walked over to the window, eyes set on Martha.

'So, you're keeping it,' she declared, blowing smoke out the window.

'Keeping what?'

It's funny, really, but she'd been truthfully oblivious, still focused on her case, the somewhat candid question actually genuine. CW rolled her eyes, smiled. ' _Please,_ ' she insisted, smirking, made Martha look up at her. 'You're not drinking, not  _smoking_  and I have to tell you that those tits,' she said, generally pointing at her chest. 'Don't fit into that bra anymore, darling.'

Instinctively, Martha looked down her body and tried to pull her blazer tighter across her chest, which frankly didn't fit anymore, either. She's in this awkward phase: isn't exactly showing, yet, but feels like her body's stocked up about a stone of water overnight in really odd places.

It would have been pointless to lie, she guessed, so she held CW's gaze and nodded, once. 'Yes.'  _We are,_ she thought, thought of Clive back then and  _we're having a baby,_  and bit her lip to hide her smile.

CW herself smiled, though, something enigmatic as she threw her cigarette out the window. ' _Ah,_ ' she breathed, grabbing a binder from the bench, along with her water bottle. 'Interesting.'

Martha glances at CW, now, and sighs, hands flat against the counter. She's still wearing his ring, she notices, absentmindedly, doesn't know if she should take it off, after what he said. Doesn't know if she'll ever be able to.

"Haven't drunk any," she says, nodding at her drink. She's not stupid, isn't trying to administer an abortion to herself with a G&T, she's just trying to decide if she wants one. She's going all in, here, so one G&T, one abortion: it's a bit of the same thing. If she drinks, she's decided, she'll book an appointment. Her fingers have been hovering over her glass for the last hour because of this.

Again, she's always been terrible at making decisions.

.

Three years ago, she remembers, after telling Billy, she kept wondering if the fateful day when he would ask her who the father was would ever eventually come. She wouldn't answer, she knew, telling herself that she was covering for Clive when, in fact, she was also probably covering for herself. CW never asked who the father was, this time around, either because she already knew or most likely because she didn't  _care._ Martha does, though. It's funny, really, how with all the men she's had in her life, it's always been him. Well, maybe not, maybe  _funny_ isn't exactly the right word.

Without meaning to, she glances at her phone, watching the screen as it stays black, no calls coming through. She has service, though, it says there, five bars. She sighs.

She guesses that ever since Clive had taken up the habit of calling her every night after last June, phones had oddly turned into a thing of theirs, whenever they were apart, his voice familiar against her ear. He went to Birmingham for a trial a few weeks back and she lied in bed with her phone in her hand, closing her eyes at the sound of his voice. 'So, how was your day?' he asked, dutifully, after she'd listened to him go on about his big criminals and their big trials for quite some time.

'No court today, didn't do much,' she said with a sigh, pushing the book she'd been attempting to read aside and pulling her legs closer to her body. It was starting to get hot again, in London, her thighs and calves only covered by a sheet. 'Attempted to get lunch and threw everything up.  _Again,_ ' she sighed. 'I'm pregnant and I'm bloody  _losing_  weight at this rate. _'_

She heard a sympathetic smile in his voice when he apologised, 'Sorry,' in her ear, as though this was his fault. Well, she guessed, it was half his fault, admittedly, and sometimes, especially when she was retching over a toilet, she kind of thought it was  _entirely_  his goddamn fault. 'Was it this bad last time?' she heard him ask, quietly, after a bit.

'Honestly, I don't remember,' she spoke, briefly glancing out her window. "I think we're biologically programmed to forget so we want to make more, or something.'

There was an awkward pause on his end of the line; she didn't say anything. 'Well,' Clive breathed, moving on. 'I read it'll get better in a few weeks.'

'You _read_?' she laughed, heard him chuckle on the other end, too. 'You, what? Googled morning sickness on my behalf?'

' _Educated_ myself.'

She smiled, wishing he were on the other side of her bed, that she could simply push herself up to kiss his lips. 'Well, I hope you're not giving me false hope.'

'You know me,' he laughed, paused. 'I could never lie to you.'

_Yeah, that._ She thinks, looking at the bottles of alcohol lined up behind the bar in front of her. Whatever.  _Fuck it_ , she decides,  _fuck him._

It's impulsive, angry; she grabs her glass and lifts it up to her lips.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," CW says, though, stops her before the alcohol touches her tongue. "I think it's like the cigarettes," she breathes, shrugging. "Doesn't actually make them go away, just makes them a bit, er,  _special_ ," she pauses, drinks. "Bit of a retard, you know?"

CW is a bit beside the point, here, and Martha rolls her eyes at the word but she does set the glass down. The moment's passed.

"What happened?" CW asks, finally catching her look. "Why are we here?"

"Do you care?"

"Not really. But sitting here in silence while you decide whether or not to keep that baby of yours isn't very entertaining."

Martha scoffs, closes her eyes. "Yeah," she breathes, looking down at her glass. "Well."

CW can fuck off, she thinks, as far as she's concerned because really, she can't say, now, can she? She can sit there and listen to her talk about the weather and Harriet but can't speak of what happened. It would mean opening her coat to the enemy and showing him exactly where her wounds are. She needs to be strong, collected, for the battlefield to come, needs to win this, now more than ever.

.

The case had fallen on her lap in Chambers, one afternoon. She'd just gotten back from court nauseous, having hardly slept the night before and feeling like all she wanted to do was to go home to a shower and her bed, and possibly a massage, if Clive was so inclined (he had better be). She walked into Chambers just intending to pick up a few files before heading home when Charlotte caught her in the corridor to her room. 'Oh hi, Miss,' she said, blocking her way out. 'Your con is here.'

'What con?' she frowned.

'It's a good case, Miss. I'm sure it'll interest you.'

A hand on her hip, she caught Charlotte's gaze but God, was that girl was very hard to read. 'What's the case, Charlotte?'

She took a moment to respond, under the pretence of sipping her coffee. In hindsight, again, Martha thinks she should have guessed something was wrong right then and there, and walked out but  _yeah_ , it's always in hindsight, isn't it? 'It's an appeal, Miss. Execution murder. Client says he's innocent.'

Martha rolled her eyes, sighed. 'God, do I look like I enjoy defending gang members, Charlotte? Why is this coming in as an appeal anyway, who was the barrister?'

Charlotte smiled, then, but didn't say anything for a bit. 'With all due respect, Miss, you should listen to the solicitor. Do it for me,' she just added, with a wink, before moving out of her way.

.

Billy used to lie a lot. He lied to her, lied to Clive, to Alan,  _Harriet_ , of course. She doesn't think anyone ever took it personally. It was just Billy being Billy, and them scrapping the surface of his smiles and "come on, you know you want to, Miss." Maybe Clive did take it personally, though, maybe that was the source of everything that ever went wrong, wasn't it?

Charlotte doesn't lie, not really, except that one time, she guesses. By omission, maybe, because she walked into the meeting room and met Lara, shook her hand before sitting down and pulling out her legal pad, setting it on the table between them.

'I just want to state out right I'm not making promises,' she told the solicitor, absentmindedly swirling her pen between her fingers. 'But tell me about your client.'

Lara didn't look like she understood the question. In fact, she frowned, seeming lost and unsure what to say. Her eyes narrowed on Martha for a second before she sighed, heavily, looking down for a second. She spoke like educated people do in Manchester, her accent tame and upper class. 'Your clerk didn't tell you, did she?'

'Tell me what?'

Lara stayed silent for a bit, looking for the right way to put this. Clue: if you're looking for the right way to say something, Martha muses, it's because there is none. If there were, maybe she would have told Clive right away, and none of this would have happened.

For the record, she'd like to state that didn't say yes back then. She actually walked out, at first, when Lara said: 'I represent Sean McBride.'

She said: 'No,' simply, politely and went to find Charlotte in the corridor, stood in front of her with her arm extended to the opposite wall, blocking her way. Not so politely. 'Don't you ever dare ambushing me like that again –'

'Miss, listen to her, I think you need to –'

'Oh, don't tell me what I need to do, I –' she started, stopped.

Lara walked out of the meeting room, just then, throwing the both of them an aggravated look. She was beautiful, Martha noted, tall, brunette, determined; she caught herself wondering where Sean had found her. 'Look,' she insisted, catching Martha's gaze. 'The appeal's in eight weeks, he antagonised his last three briefs to the point of madness, and then fired them all. You know the case back to back, I wouldn't have asked if it wasn't a life or death situation.'

Martha scoffed, rolled her eyes. 'It's always a bloody life or death situation with him.'

'Then come and tell him so in person,' Lara said, her arms crossed over her chest. 'I know you've been to visit him once already. Please. If he hears you say it, maybe I can find someone else we can work with.'

.

She didn't sleep, that night. Lay in bed with her eyes wide open for hours staring at the ceiling, trying not to toss and turn too much so as not to wake Clive. She had already  _told_ Sean. Last June, when she came by and said that she was done. He had gotten angry, she remembers. Yet, it didn't seem to have sunk in. He'd kept writing to her and she'd kept ignoring him so there was no reason why it would sink in this time, was there? It was about 4 a.m. when she felt Clive turn on his side, eyeing the side of her face in the dark. 'Marth, what's going on?' he asked, his voice groggy and full of sleep, eyes half-closed.

That's when she should have told him. In hindsight, again, it seems obvious, because everything else after that became an omission, then outright lie, when the questions became more pressing. If she had told him then, he would have been annoyed, maybe, would have told her to forget about it, and she would have been able to explain that it wasn't that easy. That she felt guilty. That potentially, she could win this. That she was terrified. That a part of her wanted to forget all about this, too, and let Sean sort out his bloody mess on his own. She had told him about him, already, and about having him by her side when her father got sick. They would have worked it out, she thinks.

'Just something at work,' she said, though, turning around to face him. At the time, she thought she wasn't even sure she'd go, tomorrow, so there was no reason for them to fight over something that might not even happen. Her right hand was under her pillow, face close enough to his that she could feel his breath on her skin. 'Nothing important,' she lied.

She leaned forward and kissed him, then, stayed like this for a while, unmoving, her forehead against his. She tried to close her eyes but every time she did, thoughts came back to haunt her, so she decided to change tactics, in the end, hooked her thigh over his hip and put her hand on his shoulder, trying to push him to lie down on his back. Clive smiled. 'You need to sleep, Marth.'

She chuckled slightly, her mouth millimetres away from his. 'Are you serious?'

'Isn't that what the doctor said?' he asked but still, she felt his hand travel up her side as he gave in, lying back, pulling her above him. 'Rest and no stress?'

_Yeah, right,_  that was what the doctor had indeed said, a few weeks back when she'd gone in to confirm the pregnancy and she really doesn't know why she'd decided to disclose this information to Clive upon her return, an information which he had immediately stored into his brain and decided to use every time he thought she was either working too much, stressing over something pointless or sleeping too little.

'Clive,' she laughed, her mouth tracing the line of his jaw, her body pressed against his. 'Are you turning down sex?'

He pulled her face up to meet his, hands against her cheeks and rose up to kiss her, open-mouthed, stubble grazing her lips; she felt him harden against her thigh. 'That is  _not_  what I said,' he countered and she laughed, the sound dying against his mouth.

.

It was 8 a.m. sharp the next morning when she knocked on the door of Nick's room, standing awkwardly at the threshold when he told her to come in, not really sure what to do with herself. He was standing behind his desk, gaze averted down, shuffling papers that were spread in a disorganised mess all over his desk, lifting files and binders until finally, he seemed to have found what he was looking for. Slipping the sheet into his briefcase, he finally looked up at her. They were alone, that morning, the other barrister who shared his room having gone to court already.

'I have a favour to ask,' she said, biting her lip. Nick smiled, sat down in his chair.

'I love it when  _you_ have favours to ask  _me.'_

She attempted a tight smile, her gaze unfocused, look dancing around the room, wondering how she was going to put this. 'I need you to do a con with me,' she breathed, catching his gaze. 'It's an appeal. Pretty high profile. If I take it, I'm probably going to need a junior.'

It was the bait, she knew, but they worked well together. She liked having him by her side.

'Who's the client?'

She held his gaze, let it slip past her lips. 'Sean McBride.'

There was a moment of silence, an uncertainty in Nick's look. 'Are you going to take it?'

'I don't know.'

'And you want me in the room because …' he began and let the rest of his sentence hanging, looking at her like he knew that someday, a bomb was going to go off.

She sighed. 'Because I know you'll tell me if I'm making a mistake.'

.

A few hours later, she sat at a table in front of him, Nick by her side. He hadn't changed much, haircut just a tad more askew, his eyes tired when he glanced up at her. It was June, late afternoon, the sun coming through the bars at the windows, drawing shadows on their faces. Instinctively, she crossed her arms, then purposefully uncrossed them when she remembered that once, someone had told her it made her look defensive.

Sean glanced at her, then at Nick.

'Who's he?'

'My junior'

'Do you trust him?'

She rolled her eyes, sat back in her chair. Crossed her arms again. 'He's bound by confident -'

Sean moved quickly, his palm pounding, once, on the table, a rattle of metal against metal following the movement. Ever since his assault on Clive, they weren't taking his cuffs off in the presence of anybody. She jumped a bit, tried to hide it behind a sigh. 'No, you don't get it, it's life or death for me in here, Mar, I –'

She closed her eyes for millisecond and thought:  _fuck that._  He was playing her, with his drama and fake confidence, and – 'Shut up, Sean,' she said, leaning forward and setting both her hands on the table. He backed away. 'You lied to me, and then you lied again, and again, and then you ended up here. Cut the act. Or I'm out.'

He caught her stare and held it for what felt like forever while her heart hammered in her chest and smiled, finally, a sad smile like the one he used to give her when they were sixteen and she said  _no, I can't come, tonight._ 'Did you read my letters?' he asked, quiet, looking down at his hands.

'No.'

He smiled, again, glance catching hers, huffed. 'You should have,' he said. 'They were good.'

All the while she sat there looking at him, she kept expecting him to ask why she was even here in the first place, even after she'd told him she was done, a year ago. But that was her question, she guesses, not his. Her question about her own weaknesses and inability to let people go. He needed her help; she thought she owed it to him.

'You remember that shop down the street at my Mum's,' he recounted, suddenly, that same sad smile tugging at the corner of his lips; he looked like he did when she knew him. 'We used to get chips and cans of coke, and you'd skip school and we'd eat in bed. Watch movies on VHS and, well, the rest is probably not suitable for this guy's ears,' he added, pointing at Nick and – 'no offense, mate –' he laughed as she threw him a glare, tensed in her seat.

'What's your poin–'

'I was so fucking in love with you, Martha Costello' he breathed, shook his head. 'Best looking girl in the class.' He bit his bottom lip; she noticed it was redder in a particular spot, guessed he probably did that a lot, that and biting his nails raw. 'I should have told you sooner,' he added, trying to catch her glance. 'I should have gone to Manchester with you, I shouldn't have lied to you –'

She shook her head. ' _Sean -'_

'I still love you, you know?'

She heard the words and felt a punch in her gut. He'd said that once before, just as she'd finally found the strength to walk away. She didn't want to look at him, didn't want to look at Nick, so she stared at her hands instead, the ring on her finger. She played with it, a little bit, doesn't think Sean saw it.

'What do you want?' she asked, looking up, her jaw set and eyes fixed on him. She pursed her lips, tried to breathe.

'You're the only one I trust, Mar,' he said, weakly, and that sad smile again, she couldn't forget it. 'You know I didn't do this.'

She was silent on the way out, as the guard showed them to the exit and as they made their way back to their lockers, door after door. Nick waited until they were in the car park to ask: 'Are you taking it?'

'Yes,' she said. The word rolled off her tongue.

She turned around to beep her car open, heard his words spoken to her back. 'You're making a mistake.'

She heard the beep, too, sighed. 'I know.'

.

She didn't tell Clive. He was happy, that night, had won a case, so she didn't tell him. And she didn't tell him the day after that, or the day after that, or all of the days that followed. The more the weeks passed the more it felt like a ticking bomb about to go off. He'd see her working on her brief and would look over her shoulder and she'd shut the binder down and say: 'Confidential. Can't tell you.'

He'd laugh, a bit, kiss her neck, her shoulder, and say: 'Don't care, come to bed.'

It lasted over a month. She convinced herself that eight weeks to the trial wouldn't be long and that by the time it would hit the news, she would already be in it, and he'd  _understand_. She convinced herself that it was none of his business to begin with. She convinced herself of a lot of things.

Tonight, the night when she saw CW, though, he had said that he couldn't come by. Big trial the next day or something. Yet, around seven in the evening, she heard the jiggle of his keys in the lock of her door as she sat at her kitchen table, gaze buried in the paperwork in front of her. She automatically shut the binder when he came into the room, smiled up at him.

'Hey. I thought you were working.'

'No,' he paused, crossing his arms. 'But you are.'

She doesn't know what it was, the look in his eyes that he was trying to hide or the tone of his voice but she instinctively sat up in her chair, tensed.

'What are you working on?' he asked.

'Brief.'

'Who's the client?'

She narrowed her eyes on him, catching his glare. He looked restless, tired, dark circles under his eyes, couldn't seem to focus. 'Have you been drinking?' she asked, cautious and quiet. The sun was just setting, she remembers, those late summer nights like the one when he took her to a gig and kissed her under a storm.

'Yes,' he said, cutting, gaze cold. 'Who's the client?'

She got up and walked around the table with a mug in hand, placed it in the sink. She turned around, stood with her back to the countertop and crossed her arms, too. 'Girl called Jessica Kabacinski. Why?'

Clive let out a short laugh; it chilled her to the bone. 'Don't lie to me.'

'I –'

'How long did you  _really_ think you could hide it from me, Marth?' he started, louder, shook his head in what appeared to be disbelief. 'Did you think I wouldn't find out?'

'Find out what, Clive? I don't have time to –'

'Don't patronise me,' he barked, finally forcing her to look up at him. 'Sean Fucking McBride, for fuck's sake, Martha.'

Her fingers, that had been tapping a silent rhythm against the skin of her arm, stilled as she watched him. She didn't speak, for a while, just held his gaze.

'Are you just going to stand there?'

'Sean's my client,' she declared, holding his gaze, feeling her pulse rise against neck. 'I don't see how that's any of your problem. I don't work for you.'

She'd thought about what she would say if it happened, a while back. It sounded right, in her head but Clive laughed, then, throwing his arm in the air. She shifted. It wasn't going as planned, wasn't - 'You've got to be joking!' he snapped, shook his head. She tried to catch his gaze again but he didn't let her.

'So, you're jealous,' she stated. Her voice sounded oddly calm, cold, back then, like it was desperately trying to contain a storm. 'We're adults, Clive. Deal with it.'

She moved, walking around the table to make it to the other side of the room but he stood stock in her way, refused to budge. The volume of his voice scaled up when he spoke, she recalls. 'You can't be serious, Martha. You really think  _that's_  what it's about?'

The thing is: she's not a nice person. She's never been a nice person. She's defensive, and angry but to her credit, looking back in retrospect at the events that followed, he was worse, she thinks. 'I kissed him you know,' she said, faking detachment as she stood. She smirked when she saw the flash of hurt on his face. 'After he attacked you. Not bad, actually, butterflies in my stomach and all –'

'Good. You want to fuck him? Do it. For all I care.'

She stopped, then, froze. Looked up at him and heard his voice break when he spoke, like stuck at the back of his throat. It's stupid, really, but she doesn't think she'd ever heard him speak like that before.

He went on to say a lot of things, that night. Shouted a lot of things. She stood still, mostly, couldn't find words, too busy trying not to hear his. She remembers quotes, more than arguments. Things he said, things she said. For instance: he said it wasn't about Sean. He said it was about her. 'You think you can handle losing, Marth? Want me to remind you what happened to you last time or are the nightmares enough? Bloody  _fucking_ success, wasn't it?'

Instinctively, she raised her hand to strike his cheek but he smirked, was too far off for her to reach. ' _And who's_   _fucking fault is that, Clive?'_  she screamed.

'You just  _fucked off!'_  he roared back. She remembers closing her eyes, then, wishing she could be in Bali, or anywhere else, really.  _'_ Where did you go, hey, after the vote? You left Chambers at nine, got to the airport at three, and don't tell me you went home because I checked and you weren't there! So, where did you go, Marth?'

She bit her lip, turned around towards the window, trying to look anywhere but him. The sun had finally set, streetlights glowing in the background. She could feel a heavy lump in her throat, water pooling behind her eyes, didn't trust herself to speak.

She had walked down the Thames path, she remembers, down to Westminster bridge. It had been pretty, lights dancing in the background. She remembers people, everywhere, laughing around her, tourists speaking languages she couldn't understand. She'd stopped halfway across and looked at the London Eye, leaning over the railing. There had been a Spanish couple next to her; she'd smiled when they'd handed her their camera and said:  _Photo? Please?_

They'd left with their happy, scenic shot and she'd leaned back against the stone, her eyes drifting to the water below. The lights of the city reflected in the quick stream, if she closed her eyes and focused, she could even hear the run of the water, the lapping of the current against the pillars of the bridge.

She didn't tell Clive, then, because it's private and one of the things she doesn't want him to know, never wants him to know. She had wanted to be alone, and she'd been, had stayed there for a while before picking up her bag from the floor and going home to pack her things. She'd thought –

She'd thought what everybody thinks when they stand at a high point, overlooking a river, lights dancing at the surface. She'd thought it was beautiful. She'd thought she'd miss London, eventually. She'd thought the river looked cold, down there, and dangerous, too, with the current and the boats.

Clive shook her out of her thoughts, his voice betraying exasperation. ' _Fine,_ ' he snapped. 'Don't answer me. But keep that in mind when you stand here, putting yourself back into that same situation and pretending that it's on me. That I'm  _jealous,_  and that it's none of my business,' he said, shaking his head. She noticed his voice had gone down a little but was creeping back up, like two separate parts of his brain arguing back and forth about whether or not he wanted to fight. He seemed to choose the latter. 'You do know it's not just you anymore, now, don't you?'

She rolled her eyes, her own voice rising again. 'Oh, don't you  _dare_  use the baby against me!  _You_ pushed me out of Chambers, Sean had nothing to do with that,' she shook her head, her forefinger pointing at him. 'Your fucking problem is that you don't trust me. I can win this, Clive. And frankly, I would have if you hadn't interfered –'

'Oh, for God's sake, Martha, he's  _guilty._ He's fucking guilty, one way or another, and you know it. Why don't you –'

'One way or another?  _One way or another, Clive?_  What the fuck is that supposed to mean?' she snapped and her voice rose again. ' _Is that how you work?_ They must all be guilty,  _one way or another?_  Sean's not guilty, Clive, I am! I left him out to dry,' she paused. 'And when I lost, I fucking ran away when he needed me! I need to do this, that's what loyalty is! A concept which you, with your education and your parents' millions in the bank don't seem to have a fucking clue about!'

' _Loyalty, Marth, really?_ ' he mocked, shaking his head at her. 'You lied to me and you're lying again, and again, and you're lying to cover it up, Jesus Christ, Martha!' he yelled. 'You lied to me  _about_  Billy, about Sean, about fucking Jordan Sinclair's witness. We tell each other everything, Marth?' he shouted again, shrugged. 'It's always been just me. It always fucking has!'

'If this is about Billy –'

'Look, I get it, alright?!' he shouted again. She went quiet, tried to take a step towards him but he copied her movements with another step back. She stopped. 'I  _care,'_  he insisted, glancing up and catching her gaze. 'And you don't,' he paused. 'You lost, disappeared. I went looking for you,' he paused, again, stared into her eyes, smiled, something sad, rather than angry. 'But you didn't care, did you? You don't care about me,' he sighed, shaking his head at her. He was smiling, she remembers, sad and cold, framed by the lines on his face. 'Or about Billy, or about the baby. You don't  _love_ me, you don't love anyone. It's all fucking pretend,' he pursed his lips, breathed out again; she felt her heart break. 'All you care about is work. And your clients. And you know what, that's  _fine_ ,' he smiled, again; she could hear a lump in his throat.

She saw him look away. She remembers the way she hung on to his words like she couldn't fully grasp them, like she was standing overlooking a train about to hit a car parked on the tracks and she didn't have the tools to warn anyone.

'It's funny, it's always what people say about  _me,_  isn't it?' he caught her attention again, crossing her glance. 'But when you lose the baby again? I want you to remember this. Remember me looking at you, right now, and telling you it'll be your own  _fucking_ fault and no one else's.'

.

The strange thing about her memory is: she remembers odd things like noises and feelings. After what he said, she felt like her body was just standing there, unmoving, her mind miles away. A noise brought her back to reality, though: the rattle of his keys as he set them on the counter. She didn't say anything. Couldn't talk, couldn't breathe. She didn't want to be there and somehow, she almost wasn't.

'We're done,' he said, words detached like the realisation was hitting him as he spoke, echoing like gunshots in her head.

In retrospect, she thinks he must have meant to leave then, like she had back when she'd snapped at the Bailey last year. But instead, he stayed, rooted to the ground, like he couldn't move either. His keys just lay there, on the wood of the counter; she glanced at them, looked up at him, her heartbeat oddly slow, like all the anger and the life had been sucked out of her. 'Fuck you,' she said, holding his gaze. It felt like there wasn't anything else for her to say.

He smirked, shook his head. 'Yeah, you did,' he said. 'Didn't you?'

She doesn't know how, or when he left. She remembers looking up and suddenly noticing he wasn't there, anymore, the door slamming shut on his way out. She sat on the table, her dark tracksuits contrasting with the white of the wood and thought that was what dying must feel like.

.

In truth, though, she sat there until she needed to breathe. She doesn't think it's strength rather than shock, but she didn't cry, didn't hurt. Just walked the streets of London until she got tired and showed up in a bar after texting CW offering free booze and ordered two gin and tonics. So, long story short, that's how she got here, the story that she's not telling because CW can't know, because she isn't a friend, or an acquaintance, she's just the one who put Sean behind bars.

It's funny, because until she had the drink between her hands, she didn't even think of the baby. It was the only thing she could think about, after what Clive said, and yet –

Again, she's not an idiot, knows one drink wouldn't make a difference. She also knows that CW's right, that women drink and babies don't die. But _she_  doesn't – drink, that is - because she's already lost one. And she's careful, and she  _tries._

So if she drinks, it's done. There's no going back. She'll book that appointment tomorrow and get rid of it. She can't raise that baby on her own, not when they were supposed to do it together. Not when she thought she could trust him.

She doesn't want it to be her fault, not again. (Doesn't want him to be right.)

But she can't, can she? She'd always said that if the time wasn't right, she'd terminate, and yet she couldn't last time, and this time, when she places her hand on her stomach, she thinks –

She feels bad about it. About the years she spent agreeing alongside feminists who said women don't need to procreate to be accomplished. She still believes that. And she  _is_ accomplished, doesn't need this, and yet she watches her fingers dance over her glass before she pushes it away in CW's direction, out of reach.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the other woman smile and grab her drink, down it before setting it back down on the bar. She throws a sideway glance at Martha, getting down from her stool. CW touches her shoulder, whispers in her ear: "Go home."

.

She's never liked silence. She thinks that's why she likes music.

The apartment is empty when she opens her door. It's late, now; the lights are on exactly the way she left them, papers spread across the kitchen table bearing Jessica Kabacinski's name, untouched. Funnily enough, it was true, what she said, earlier: she wasn't working on Sean's case when he came in. In the afternoon, something more pressing came up, more urgent, something she should have worked on tonight, something with a hearing tomorrow. A heavy sigh leaves her mouth when she sits down at the table and looks around her. She needs to work, to focus; it's 10 p.m., she should get started or she'll be up all night -

The tea she had made for herself has gone cold now, and as she tries to read the lines on the papers before her, she finds that she doesn't understand them. It's not that she's thinking about it, about what he said, it's that she's not thinking about anything at all. Is unable to  _think_ , really, as if the wires that connected the cells in her brain had been cut, neat, by someone who knew what they were doing. She closes her eyes, looks around her, at the mess and the tea and her phone next to her on the table.

She grabs it, stands up, walks into her living room as the dial rings. "Hello?"

Her mother sounds surprised when she picks up; it's late, Martha guesses, unusual. "Hi, Mum."

Her voice is quick, warm; she closes her eyes and thinks of the roof, back home, the breeze in her hair. "How are you?" her mother asks. "Is everything okay?"

It's been a while since they last talked, Martha realises. She didn't want to tell her about the pregnancy, didn't want to make the same mistake twice, but also didn't want to lie to her.  _Fuck that,_  though, she thinks, now.  _Fuck caution._ "Mum, I'm pregnant."

She hears silence on the other end of the line that is frankly a bit too long to be appropriate. "Oh," her mother says, which sounds like something between surprise, approval and disapproval all at once. "Congratulations, then, darling," Martha hears, too, and after all, her mother was the one who put the idea of trying again into her brain, wasn't she, once upon a time? "How far along are you?"

"About ten weeks."

Another silence and: "Oh," again. "That's wonderful, honey; you know I've always wanted grandchildren."

Martha doesn't say anything but hears shuffling on her mother's side for a bit, the sound becoming muffled, more distant, until she hears her say: 'yeah, Roy, I'm coming.'

She picks up the phone again. "Look, Martha, I've got to head off, okay?" her mother adds in a breath. "But thanks for telling me, it's all very exciting!" she says, clearly faking said excitement, but well, it's  _something_ , at least. Martha blinks. "Good night."

"Yeah, Mum, thanks," she sighs, shakes her head. It's not that her mother sounds like she doesn't care, per se, just like she sounds like she doesn't have the time. "Good night."

The line disconnects, the tone loud and empty in her ear. Her phone drops. She drops. To the floor, her back against the wall, unable to breathe.

It's not the hormones, she knows. It's just that she's not, not a crier, remember?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Zombie by The Cranberries. If you're wondering, this was written before the news about Dolores O'Riordan. I'm gutted, really.
> 
> [2] Naïve by The Kooks. The song inspired the entire chapter, really, I've had it on repeat for weeks.


	10. x.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I'm a week late I hope you guys enjoy this and thank you for all of your lovely comments, they really make my day! Grab your tea, take your time, this is another long one :).

 

x.

.

_I left a thousand roses right on your doorstep (…) and everywhere, everywhere I go, I see pictures of you and me, laughing and crying, and fighting just to reconcile._

_I had all you need in life._

_(…)_

_Now, I don't even know what it was I kept trying to find._

_I should have put you on a throne and gave you everything you wanted, and made you my own queen_.

Too Blind - Rolo

.

.

She was fourteen when she started having serious thoughts about her ability to procreate, beyond the general expectation that she would marry and have kids one day, own a house and a dog or a cat, depending on what her husband wanted. She entertained these recurring thoughts every four weeks or so, waiting for her period to come with the anxiety and anticipation of a soldier pining for battle. She had friends, she remembers, who wanted families, and babies, and used to say: 'if it happened to me, I'd keep it,' with no bloody idea of what having a kid would entail. Her mother had had her at twenty years old and Martha already looked at her life and thought: not me.

So, she said – to herself, mostly, – 'if the time isn't right, I'll terminate it.'

It came over and over again in her head like a motto, every time her period was a bit late or her breasts a bit sore and that for the next twenty years of her life, until she was thirty-six and throwing up in the toilets of a police station and all of that smart thinking flew out the window. And then, again, now.

Clive had perfect timing to put an end to this, didn't he?

.

The next morning, when she wakes up, it feels like a different world, altogether. She looks at her reflection in the mirror and her eyes are red, dry, restless; she gets up and puts on an extra layer of make-up on her face, walks into Chambers and pretends that she doesn't feel like the life has been sucked out of her. She's never been really good at dealing with things, prefers to cover them up and try to forget they ever existed. If she doesn't think about it, doesn't  _feel_ about it, there may be a chance that she might not actually break. She's a grown woman, she's been dumped before; it'll be fine, she thinks. Jo and her cheap psychology courses would probably say to confront things head-on and wallow in self-pity for a while but that's not how Martha Costello does things. So, she sits at her desk and laughs at one of Nick's jokes, watches Billy smiling back at her from his picture frame and adopts the same tactics she did when he passed away: pushing it to the back of her brain in an attempt to numb how much it hurts.

Last night, she must have slept for about an hour or so, between five and six, when her mind finally stopped swirling thoughts around her head like tasteless soup in a pan. Her alarm went off and she felt the anger, and the fight creep back in, thought:  _you're better than him._

Her bedroom was silent, then, all she could hear were the birds chirping away at the summer outside. A while back, she used to be able to hear the low hum of the refrigerator from here, if she paid attention. She remembered waking up the day before: the alarm had just gone off and she'd hit snooze forcefully with her palm, turned away from the noise. Clive had laughed, in the background, snuck back in bed with his hair still wet from the shower, kissed her temple and joked: 'Good morning, sunshine!'

She had rolled her eyes behind her closed lids, felt his hand travel down under the sheets between them, his palm stopping on a space over her bellybutton. 'Good morning, you too,' she heard him say, this time, and tried very hard not to smile.

Unlike Clive, she'd never talked to the baby before, was so convinced that she was going to lose it, didn't want to get attached. This morning, though, when she woke up alone in her bed and saw the sun already creeping past the blinds, she set her hand on her stomach and whispered: "Stay. Please."

_We're better than him,_ she thought.

.

Ever since she dumped Sean when she was seventeen, she doesn't think she ever ended another relationship. She's a bit weak, on that front, doesn't like hurting people – and taking decisions,  _again,_  - so she does what's necessary to end things without having to make the final call.

When she started seeing Jerôme, he was supposed to leave. He was a senior associate on a partner track doing competition law in a big firm in Brussels and had been flown in for a six months gig at their London office for a case involving a big pharmaceutical company forbidding their wholesalers from exporting medication around the EU. She'd met him at a conference on Article 6 of the ECHR (his "other passion," he'd claimed, before he went corporate and lame) where they'd hit it off talking about the right to a fair trial and football, before she ended up at his short term rental apartment about a hundred meters from his office on Liverpool street.

A couple months later, they were still hooking up from time to time –  _read_  a few times a week, which, by her standards, was already more regular and long term than any relationship she'd had in the past ten years – when he'd asked her about kids. They were in bed, she remembers, basking in post-coital bliss; he turned on his side to look at her, his hair standing out at odd angles against the white cover of his pillows, her gaze hovering between him and the ceiling. 'Do you want kids?' he said and she puffed out a laugh, coughing on a cigarette. He smoked menthols, she remembers, had covered up the smoke detectors of his apartment with cheap towels from IKEA.

'What kind of question is that?' she cocked an eyebrow at him, amused. He rolled his eyes.

'I don't mean with me, right this minute,' he said, shaking his head at her. 'I mean in the grand scheme of things, one day.'

She was tempted to repeat her initial reaction - because again:  _what kind of question was that?_  – but ended up breathing another drag and puffing out to the ceiling, a cloud of smoke temporarily filling the air around them. 'I don't know,' she said, honest, amended. 'I don't think so,' she paused before stealing a glance at him. 'You?'

Oddly, he seemed to think about it.  _Really_  think about it, as if he'd never thought about it before. A very male privilege, she mused. 'I think so,' he finally said, nodding. 'I mean, not now. When the time is right and I make partner, and things get  _easier._ '

She laughed, again, killed her cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table. She turned on her side, too, facing him. 'No clock for men, is there?'

He frowned. 'What clock?'

Back then, she read from the confused look on his face that it was probably a language issue, more than anything else, that there probably was a similar concept in French that hadn't translated right, but the thought still crossed her mind:  _how fitting_. 'Nothing,' she smiled.

And truth be told, at the time, she really thought it would be that: nothing. But then, his contract got extended. Once, twice and the months passed, years passed, and he was offered partnership, a permanent place in London and one day, it did become  _something._ He wouldn't have pressured her, ever, but she could see in his eyes that he wanted more for them than whatever they had. She felt trapped, powerless, and instead of ending it herself, she started sleeping around in the hopes that he'd find out – he did, eventually – and put out the fire on her behalf – and he did that, too.

Her thoughts are a full circle, really, because maybe Clive's right, isn't he? If it was her fault before, if she didn't care before, maybe she was just kidding herself in thinking that this was any different.

.

The next time she sees him, Clive, she's standing alone in the robing room, making sure the safety pin she now uses instead of zipping her skirts all the way up is still in place - she's not showing, yet, but she's bloated and wishes early maternity suits were a thing, already – when he walks in. She's positioned in a way that has her facing the door, in that particular moment, so she's the first thing that he sees, walking in. Clive freezes, instantly, his hand still on the handle.

She looks up, crosses his gaze, looks away. She has to admit it's a small victory to establish that he looks every bit as shit as she feels.

"Sorry," he says, backing away towards the door.

She rolls her eyes, slipping her gown on. "It's fine. I'm almost done, anyway," she says, looking away.

He's got no choice but to stay, now, and the silence is strained between them for another couple of minutes as he stands behind her shoving his things into his locker. She wishes she had, indeed, been almost done or that there were other people in the room for either of them to talk to. Frankly, she feels like she's stuck in a lift with Prince Charles.

She breathes in, turns around to face his back as he stands, facing the other side, the little benches between both rows of lockers an awkward fence between them. "I'm keeping it," she hears herself say, looking at him.

Clive freezes, again, a hand closing up his gown. He doesn't turn around, keeps his eyes trained down on his feet. "Keeping what?"

She doesn't answer right away, waits until he finally does turn around to hold her gaze for an instant before she looks away. She turns back towards her locker, fishing in for her wig. "The baby," she says, pausing. Wig in hand, she turns around again, sets it on top of the binders she'd laid down on the bench before reaching to lift them up in her arms. Clive stays there, a hand on his collar, unmoving. "I thought maybe I wouldn't," she admits, shrugs. "But now, I think I will." She breathes, holding the files in her arms; it feels good to be holding onto  _something_ , at least. "So, if you want to play a role in its life, that's fine, I can't deprive you of that," she adds, pausing. "But I won't expect anything from you."

"Jesus, Martha, of  _course,_  I want to be part of its life _._ I –"

"Don't," she says, quickly, because frankly whatever he still has to say, she's not sure she's strong enough to hear it. It's been two days - three nights – and she's yet to really close her eyes. "I'll, uh," she starts, stops, walks the couple of steps to the door. "I'll keep you informed, then."

.

For about a month after that, she  _works_. She's Martha Costello, the workhorse, the cross between Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa and small Rottweiler. She spends her days in Chambers and her nights sat at her kitchen table, when she even finds it in her to make the effort to go home. She thinks that if she knew this case back to back before, it's nothing compared to now. She can quote any page from the transcripts and picture all the shots taken of the victim's body from memory, knows everything there is to know down to the exact shape of the blood stain on Sean's jacket. Sometimes, there is another case, a late return or slow burner that was scheduled beforehand and she takes a break, reviews the binder, goes to court, makes her argument, wins it, and then it's back to her room she goes. In different circumstances, she might have seen a bit of truth in the argument implying that she's going a bit mad in the head but right now, on the opposite, it keeps her from losing her mind. Keeps her focused.

Nick knocks on the door to her room, one night, with a plate in hand. She smiles, waves him in and throws him a questioning look when he sets it on her desk. It's cake, three slices left, part of what probably used to be a perfect circle.

"What is it?" she asks, looking up from her laptop.

"Chocolate, I think," he says, taking a slice between his fingers. He sets it down on a napkin, sits back in his chair, holding the food in his palm. "Was for Latifa's birthday earlier. I think," he explains. She sees him bite in and hum in appreciation, wiping his fingers on the napkin. "Not bad. You should eat some," he adds, nodding at the plate.

She looks down at the cake. It looks good, frankly, and she's hungry, but if it's just to throw it all up again in half an hour, she'd rather not. "I'm good, thanks," she says, sadly, looking back down at her paperwork.

Nick smiles, pushes the plate towards her. "I think you really should eat," he pauses as she looks up, raises an eyebrow. "Considering."

She holds his gaze. "Considering what?"

He smiles and sets his half-eaten piece of cake on the desk before sitting back in his chair, the low glow of her light casting a shadow over the left side of his face. "The fact that I haven't seen you drink in over a month," he says, pausing. " _And_  the fact that I heard you vomiting in the toilet, yesterday. And the day before that."

"Stomach bug," she counters, automatically, barely looking up.

Nick huffs out a laugh, catches her gaze. "Yeah," he says. "Is that what they call it, these days?"

She rolls her eyes and sits back in her chair, finally, crosses her arms over her chest. At least he's not commenting on the size of her tits, she muses. "Okay," she nods, glancing down at her desk. "Well,  _clearly_  you also know I can't seem to keep anything down, so –"

Nick laughs and raises an eyebrow. "Even chocolate?"

She doesn't know if it's the look on his face or the genuine concern that seems to filter behind his words but she catches herself smiling, too, and  _okay,_ she thinks: it may be time for a break. She's been working non-stop since she came back from court at 5 p.m. and the sky is dark, now, so she shuts the screen of her laptop and sits back again, extending her legs under her desk, closes her eyes, and sighs. "It's the smells, really," she admits, looking up at him. "Stuff I even used to like," she shrugs. "Mint. Coconut. Onions. Anything, really," she adds, rolling her eyes.

Nick smiles, leaning in again to grab another piece of cake. "Fine," he chuckles, shoving a bite into his mouth. "I'll eat it all, then."

They end up laughing about everything and nothing for a bit, she rediscovers muscles in her face she'd forgotten since Clive left. So, Nick knows, she notes, in her head. From the height of his twenty-four years on this planet, he probably thinks she's just one of those women who always seem to be pregnant, now. She rolls her eyes at the thought, looking down at the paperwork she still has to get through. She meant to come to him about this tomorrow, really, but since he's there, she might as well tell him tonight. "I think you're right," she admits, finally, leaning back in her chair, her hands behind her head.

"'bout wha-?" Nick asks, still chewing on cake.

"We need to argue evidence," she breathes, pushing a paper aside. "I don't care what Sean says. He's lied too much at this stage to make anyone believe he's innocent. We need to argue the law."

Nick looks up at her words, catches her gaze. He'd brought the idea up a few days ago, pointing out the inconsistencies in the case. 'Why call Mickey Joy?' he'd asked, followed by: 'And why disregard his statement, then?' And: 'An anonymous informant found the jacket? Please? Who found this, really, do we know?'

She didn't answer that one, obviously, but after turning it around in her head for the last two days; she thinks he kind of has a point. The gun, the jacket, half the evidence fell on their lap in the middle of trial, with little to no time for anyone to truly examine it. Fitzpatrick relied on Brannigan's testimony with little to no questions asked and if the guy was paid by the Monk family to throw Sean under the bus, the coppers had to know about it. Mickey Joy was wrong about this. It's not the big, bad conspiracy that counts, it's the little details that allowed it to stand. It's an appeal; the judges will have reviewed the evidence, the turn the first trial took already. They'll know the story of the Monk family killing two birds with one stone and they'll either believe it or not, but she won't change their opinions about it. She hates it but she needs to work like the coppers do, now. She's got the narrative, needs to show where the evidence sticks, and where it doesn't. Nick's right: if the evidence falls on irregularities, there's reasonable doubt. And if there's reasonable doubt, Sean walks.

" _You_ think  _I'm_ right?" Nick says, smiling, leaning over the desk.

She laughs, nods. "For the record, I voted to keep you in at Shoe Lane, you know?"

"Well," he sighs, wiping his fingers on the napkin. "I voted you in here, so we're even, I guess," he adds, pausing for a bit, seems to think about it. "Seriously, though? You agree?"

"I," she starts and lets the syllable rest in her mouth for a bit. Thinks. "I think he's an idiot," she smiles, shaking her head. "But I also think he's innocent. The thing is: I've tried that argument before, that and police corruption and we both know how that ended," she breathes. "It's more than that. It's this trial being run like a circus from start to finish. It's that copper lying on the stand, it's Mickey Joy going back and forth on his testimony, it's CW being drunk, it's Cl-" she almost slips, shakes her head, sighs. "It's that  _jacket_ being found last minute by God knows who, I mean, it's everything, it's just all bollocks really. Even I shouldn't be in there, I'm conflicted out."

Nick laughs, sits back, crosses his arms. "Glad to hear you say it."

She shakes her head, huffs a bit of a laugh. "What I mean is," she starts. "We need to bring that down bit by bit. If we just argue innocence, all we have is the blood on the wrong sleeve of that jacket. And yes, that's relevant, and we'll bring it up but believe me, they'll find some other way to pin this on him," she sighs. "We need to burn the whole house down."

Nick stays silent for a bit, purses his lips, lets her words sink in. "Sean isn't going to be happy," he says. "He was, er, pretty adamant on innocence."

"Well, he'll have to get used to it," she sighs. "'Cause right now, I'm all he's got, so I'm taking my own instructions, here," she pauses. "If he wants to fire me, he just has to say the word," she shrugs, eyeing the clutter around her room. There are dozens of files on her desk, a wobbly bookcase by Vanessa's and curtains that barely filter the streetlights from outside. She leans forward, her hand hovering over her desk for a bit; she finally grabs a piece of cake, too.  _Fuck it_ , she thinks. Nick smiles. "So," she says, looking up at him.  _Hm_ , she thinks, that cake really is nice. "Are you in?"

"To burn the house down?"

She chews a bit, swallows. "Yeah."

Nick smiles, nods. "Always."

.

It's kind of hard to believe, as a coincidence, but she's exactly fourteen weeks pregnant when the trial starts. The good news is that the nausea has finally rescinded – which will undoubtedly prove useful during the hearings - but other problems have made their apparition in the meantime. On the Sunday morning before the appeal starts, she looks at her clothes on their rack trying to find something to wear to go grab some food at the corner shop and decides that this is it: she can't go on like this. She'd promised herself to wait until next week at least - that psychological barrier still high in her head - but then her credibility's at stake. Even hidden under her robes, she can't show up with a blouse she can't close and a skirt that's not even zipped up halfway through. She's showing a lot more than last time, really, which the internet seems to confirm is normal but still, the pregnancy is becoming harder and harder to hide.

So, when 11 a.m. rolls around and the shops finally open: she goes shopping. There's nothing more she can do on the case anyway, and frankly, if she calls Nick one more time to run things past him, she genuinely thinks he might stop answering. It's hot, gross and rainy outside but still quiet in the shops when she gets there, so she spends a lot of time just looking at everything, from tracksuits to work clothes, and chatting with the salespeople in different places, trying to listen to them when they promise that no, that particular item does not make her look fat.

As a general rule, she's always hated fashion shopping – her usual work uniform exists for a reason - but faced with the obvious fact that the pregnancy pencil skirts tend to be very revealing of her bump - which she's not quite sure she wants to own that much, yet, - she also ends up picking a few looser dresses, which make it easier to, er, hide things for a little while longer. Even though she's past the twelve weeks, now, considering past experience, she still hasn't found the courage to be open about it, really.

After hours spent going from shop to shop, her back and feet start to truly kill her, so she decides to stop at the pub to sit down and eat before making her way back home. The Crown is this kind of strange place where the busiest days are during the week, with the whole of Middle Temple pouring in every day after six, the weekends being oddly quiet and peaceful. She settles down at a table and can't actually see anyone she knows, just a couple of tourists sitting by the door and a few other patrons at the back, reading newspapers or doing crossword puzzles. Pat walks up to her table; she's placed all of her shopping bags on the booth; he throws her an amused smile. "Haven't seen you in a while," he says, handing her the menu. "What do you want?"

She doesn't move to catch the menu from his hand, just glances up at him. "Full English?"

Pat laughs, checks his watch. "It's 2:30 in the afternoon."

_Yes_ , she thinks,  _well._  She feels like eggs. And beans, and toast. And now that she can finally eat without puking everything back out the next minute, she might as well indulge a bit. She holds Pat's gaze, daring him to say no.

He laughs, shakes his head. "Ice cream and pickles on top, too?" he jokes and she rolls her eyes, glares up at him. "Come on," he says, smiles, laying a friendly hand on her shoulder. "I'm just taking the piss." He taps the table with the menu in his other hand, nodding. "To drink? Sprite? Water?"

"Water's fine," she nods.

She sees him turn around, shout over in the direction of the kitchen. "A full English breakfast and a pint of water coming right at yeh!"

.

The food is good, so is the company. Pat lets the young barman they recently hired, Tom, do the service as he sits at her table and watches her eat. He tells her about his kids, his ex-wife, his mum and brothers back home. "They don't like me living out here," he jokes, as she chews on a piece of toast. "Think I'm a traitor to the cause."

She laughs at his jokes, but as the minutes pass and there's nothing left to occupy her mind but Pat's small talk, she starts thinking about Clive again. It's easy to forget when she's working, pulling all-nighters every other day, but every time she stops, or every time she stands in her underwear looking at her reflection in the mirror with her hand resting against her midriff, he creeps back into her mind. At first, all she could think about was what he said, turning it around in her head, not knowing what hurt more: what he said about her, or what he said about the baby. Some days, she'd wake up thinking he was right, thinking she was awful, heartless, careless, and that she was going to lose it again. Some other days, though, she'd blame him, call him names in her head, shout at him all the insults and recriminations she wishes she could have said to his face.

Now, it's harder. Every time she sees him, runs into him in court or in the street, she remembers how they were, too, before. She remembers the  _I-love-you-s_  he used to whisper in her hair, and the quiet mornings they'd have, the visits to his sister's and the silly bickering over her unwashed mugs left in the sink. It's a bit weak, she knows, but she misses him, the smell of his skin and the sound of his voice, the feeling of his hand over hers.

It certainly doesn't help that her hormones are through the roof, at the moment.

"You're in a competition, aren't you?" she hears Pat ask, blinks herself out of her thoughts

She frowns toying with her fork, pushing the last few beans around the plate. "What?"

"You and 'im," Pat breathes, giving her slight nod. She swallows, quickly, shifts awkwardly in her seat. "Who's more miserable?" he asks, catching her glance. "Fifteen minutes ago, I would have said him, you know? But then I go away to put the tables out outside and when I come back, you're sitting here brooding and staring into space like a lost fucking sheep."

She sighs, looks up, rolls her eyes. She's not here to talk about Clive. She's here because it's hot and humid outside, because she was hungry and because her feet were killing her. She sighs, again, looks away.

"He comes here too, you know?" Pat says, trying to catch her gaze. "Every fucking night. Sits on that stool down there," he points, in the direction of the bar; she glances out, shrugs. "And  _drinks_. Never seen him like that before, even had to throw him out a couple times 'cause he didn't want to go home," Pat breathes. "Lost fucking sheep, just like you. Even that blonde Barbie of his doesn't seem interested anymore, haven't seen her in ages."

She has to admit that does make her look up; she curses herself for it.  _Pathetic._ "Harriet?"

Pat huffs out a laugh. "See?" he nods, smiling. "You  _care._ "

She shrugs, looks out the window to her left. It's funny, it's the exact opposite of what Clive said, isn't it? Claiming she  _doesn't_  care.

"For what it's worth, he said he was an idiot," Pat adds, after a while, and she wonders if Clive didn't ask him to plead his cause.  _Well,_   _at least he knows he's an idiot,_  she guesses. Doesn't mean she'll ever be able to forget what he shouted at her that evening. "One night, he said: 'Pat, I'm an idiot,'" he quotes, shrugs. "Which, in my experience with men in pubs, is almost always the case, but you know -"

She smiles, shortly, sadly, feels Pat's stare on her face, his fingers tapping against the table in a rhythm she doesn't recognise. "I miss Billy," she hears herself say before she hears herself think. She doesn't know where it comes from, exactly, or why it pops into her mind uninvited, but she really, really does miss Billy.

"Yeah, me too," Pat breathes from the other side of the table, chuckles lightly. "So does my accountant," he jokes and she smiles, shaking her head at him. "Your man can drink all he wants, he doesn't even come close to Billy's tab."

She hears herself laugh, like a distant sound or an echo. She wonders what Billy would have said, now, looking at them. She hasn't visited him since telling him about the baby, doesn't know if she lacks the strength, or just doesn't think she wants to spend even more time than she already does listening to the sound of her own thoughts. Billy would have put Clive and her in a room and forced them to make peace like all he'd done was to pull her hair on the playground.

"Do you love him?" Pat asks, catching her glance. "Clive, do you love him?" he specifies and she remembers the way Jo asked, in a pub, too, what feels like a million years ago. The answer's the same, she thinks, will always be the same.

She speaks in a breath – it's a lawyer thing: never answering the question asked. "I need to forget about him."

Pat laughs, then, pushing himself up from the booth, both his hands on the table. She looks up at him, crosses his gaze. "Well, that'll be a bit hard with that bun you've got in the oven, won't it?"

.

It's 7 a.m. the next morning and she's dressed for court, light bright in her bathroom, looks at herself in the mirror as she applies her lipstick and thinks:  _good._

Not  _great,_  but  _good._  Good enough. She's had coffee, six hours of sleep and her new clothes look  _professional,_ fall over her stomach in a way that makes it less obvious and safer, protected, somehow. CW will open; she will close, one of the immutable privileges of the rule of law. She's got five days to prove a truth and right a wrong, which feels a lot more like five days to disprove a lie and make a wrong look a bit less believable but that, she can do.

She meets Nick outside court, thinks he looks nervous and feels – oddly – calm. Sean isn't, though. She sees him through the glass of his box when she walks in, the way he jitters and bites his fingers, looking from the empty judicial bench in front of him to Nick, to herself, to the accusation.  _Jumpy as hell,_  she recalls Clive once said. CW isn't there, yet - probably drinking one last shot before the run through. Setting her bag at her feet, Martha sits down on the wood of the bench, closes her eyes, breathes.

She hears Nick ruffling papers behind her. She hears the usher sitting down. If she really concentrates, she can even listen to the tick-tack of the clock on the wall. CW walks in with someone behind her – pupil? Junior? Martha wonders – their footsteps getting closer, both wearing heels – probably a girl. She sits down, next to her, speaks. It's the calm before the storm, Martha thinks.

"Ready for round two?"

She doesn't move quite yet, just pictures the room in her head, inhales –

"All rise."

Her eyes snap open, hands on the wood, she pushes herself up, sees three figures wearing gowns walk in front of her.

_Okay,_ the voice in her head says.  _Here it goes._

.

When she was a child her teachers used to tell her parents about how focused she was. She would sit in silence for hours for the perfect drawing to come out, the perfect sentence, perfect posture. It was as if she could simply shut down, when she wanted to, have her brain aimed at one particular thing, one particular problem she needed to solve. She didn't need food or water, didn't need breaks, could sit on a chair for seven hours straight until the field of flowers on her paper was shaped in just the right way, with exactly the right colours framed.

What she does during those big trials is a bit of the same thing. It's her and the court, and blurry shapes all around. She shuts down. Doesn't look at people, doesn't see them, doesn't hear any noise that's not strictly essential to her argument. She doesn't do it all the time, but sometimes, when it's necessary.

She doesn't go home for more than a few hours at a time, that week, only sees the sun on her way to court and back, lives in the office with Nick, runs her cross-examinations over and over with the precision of a classical musician playing to the sound of a metronome, and tries not to break. She counts the points she scores versus the hits she takes, CW's voice constantly hovering close to the penalty line. Sean is there, in the box behind her, she knows, but she never looks – never lets herself look – for fear that the glass might break. She's more prepared than last time, has got the luxury to be because Charlotte freed her calendar this week and the week before, told her she needed to win this.

There's a part of her that wants to fight, wants to point out that the only reason her clerk cares is that it would look good for Chambers, but she's shutting down, now, so she needs to choose her battles.

She chooses Sean.

.

Every time she goes to the loo, she expects to find blood on her underwear. Somehow, though, she doesn't. Somehow, by some sort of incredible twist of fate, the baby seems to hang in there. At least for what she knows. She's read online that sometimes, their hearts could stop beating without you knowing about it. She's read a lot of horror stories, at night, when she can't sleep, tries not to think too much about it. She doesn't want Clive to be right on that one. If he is, it may mean that he's right about everything else.

The first few days go by in the blink of an eye. They have legal arguments about anything from the length of the trial to Mickey Joy's testimony (it's easy, she argues, to just simply disregard the words of a dead man) some that she wins, some that she loses. It's a lot of clever words, a lot of "my learned friend"s from CW, they frankly hurt her ears.

They have one of Sean's mates at the stand one afternoon. He's called by the prosecution. CW claims Sean had subcontracted some cleaning business to him but Martha has an odd, fishy feeling about it. The guy wasn't there at the first trial, looks familiar, somehow, but she can't quite place it. He's nervous, glances at Sean, glances at her a lot, like he's not quite decided on what he wants to say, yet.

"Nick Westlake, Martin Land, Steve Keane and Robin Page," CW quotes, finally, after a good ten minutes of excruciatingly pointless questions about the details of his business with Sean. Martha freezes, catches the pen that had been swirling between her fingers in her palm, holds her breath. That's where she knows him from, she realises: he was in school with them, a few years older, dropped out a few months before Sean and she got together. Martha doesn't think he recognises her, really, but he looks like he definitely recognises the names, his glance quickly flickering towards Sean. Either CW is fishing - which is possible, Martha guesses, because everyone's been trying to figure out who these people were for months, after all, - or she was  _told._

If she was, there's only one person who could have told her.

_Fuck Clive_ , Martha thinks.

Sean's stare is digging holes into the back of her head as CW speaks, asks: "Do those names sound familiar to you?"

Frankly, she wonders if she would lie for him, were she the one speaking, out there.

"No," she hears Sean's mate say and breathes.

"Are you sure?" CW counters, her forearm resting against the wood of the lectern in front of her. "We've looked at the records, it seems that you attended the same school. Same school as Mr McBride, shall I add?"

All things considered, Martha thinks, she argues her way out of this one with calm, collection and the utmost brilliance. She throws the ball back at CW, accusing her of testifying for the witness, pointing out how loose the connection is, even more so considering the number of people who were at that school and the limited time her client actually spent within its walls. From the look on the judges' faces and the way they request CW to move on, it sounds a lot more believable than it should.

CW herself smiles, though, something tight and very Lady-Macbeth-ian, Martha thinks, for the lack of a better word. She steals a quick glance at her before she notes, her voice lower than the last time she spoke: "Yes, Mr Donovan, plenty of people at that school,  _indeed_."

.

A few hours later, they break for the day and Martha is packing up her things when CW smiles at her, toying with the cap of her empty bottle. "You knew, didn't you? Your classmates?" CW asks, looking up at her. "Maybe it's true. Maybe that guy Donovan doesn't know them," she pauses. "But you do. That's why you walked out, last time around."

"I'm sorry, I don't see what you're talking about."

"Thought that was weird, you know? You walking out like that," she adds as Martha keeps packing, shoving her wig inside her handbag and grabbing the files on her desk in her arms. "Then I started having the pupil look into it, that is until our beloved Head of Chambers became  _very_ insistent there was nothing to find, there," she pauses, glancing at Martha. Her eyes are trained down, heart hammering against her ribcage. "Which, of course, given current circumstances, I thought was even  _more_ interesting."

So, it wasn't Clive. At least not voluntarily. She spent the entire hearing thinking about it, thoughts going round and round in her head, and fucking Caroline Warwick probably knew this the whole time. She lost points, in this mess, nothing too big but it felt like she was gripping at straws all afternoon, all because CW got under her fucking skin. Clive tried to cover for her, for better or for worse, he tried to –

She takes her phone in her hand, gathers all of her things under her arm and: "Good night, Caroline," she hears herself say, making a very conscious effort not to just rush out of the room.

The door is heavy as it closes behind her and she leans against the wall outside court.  _One, two, one, two,_ she counts,  _breathes._

_._

The next day, things get back on track. CW brings up the jacket, the gun; she argues the chain of evidence and drives her point home with at least two of the judges, from what she can tell. She also gets her rematch against the medical examiner, gets her to admit that: "No, Mr McBride isn't left-handed."

She pushes, catches the other woman's glance. "You didn't know this, did you?"

She tries to defend herself, again. "I didn't, but –"

"But you didn't have time to examine the jacket properly, did you, Miss Buchan? Because it was found in the middle of trial and you were rushed to issue your conclusions. And you know what? I didn't notice it either," she shrugs. Her gaze flicks over to the bench, the back on her witness. "The police, they had their man, their narrative, and that was enough. They didn't grant  _me_ the right I had to counter them, didn't give  _you_  the power to do your job and now they're letting you stand here, almost a year later, trapped in a position where  _your_ findings are coming out as incorrect by  _their_ fault," Martha adds, pauses, her glance resting on the medical examiner's eyes. "Now, Miss Buchan, how does that make you feel?"

She opens her mouth, closes it, shakes her head. There's desperation in her look, and apologies; it almost makes Martha sad.

"I'll tell you how it makes  _me_ feel," she hammers, letting her point make itself. "Cheated. On behalf of my client, and of the justice system you and I both are so dedicated to serving."

The witness clenches her jaw but doesn't say anything, bites her lips and closes her eyes for a second.

It feels like they're alone in the room, when Martha says: "One big performance, isn't it?"

This time, she stands a few seconds more, gives her the opportunity to answer, dutifully, but the words never come. Martha sits down, noting, out loud: "No response."

.

It's funny, how quickly the sand can shift under one's feet. She was the runner-up, then toe to toe with the leading filly but after that, when the prosecution runs Sean's background and she argues evidence, relevance, it feels like a different race, altogether. The audience's focus isn't on CW, anymore, but on her. It feels like she owns the tracks now.

'I just wish things were clearer, sometimes,' she told Alan, once. She was younger; he was wiser. 'That everyone didn't think this is all a game.'

He shook his head, smiled. 'It is,' he declared. 'But a serious one, a betting one,' he laughed.

Well, she thinks, if it's a betting game, at least this one, she knows the tells. When the next day, they have Brannigan on the stand, she gets to go through his accounts, his lifestyle, with the full attention of the room set on her. "You're being paid by the Monk family, aren't you, Mr Brannigan?" she asks, her voice loud and clear, echoing in the room. "You were paid to throw your mate Sean, here, under the bus."

"No," Loyd says and she sighs, shaking her head.

"So, for the umpteenth time, sir, where does the money come from?"

"I don't know,  _okay_?" he finally shouts, frantic and jumpy and Martha utters a smile, looks up at the bench and sits back down.

"No further questions."

.

It's that night when she receives the first text from Clive in a very long while. She's putting some ready-made meal in the oven, wipes her hand on a tea towel before grabbing her phone off the counter and it's funny, really, but when she looks at her screen, the last message before this one is from weeks ago and says  _I'll see you tonight, then._  This one is just a link, though, at first, a Guardian article from a reporter covering the trial.  _Gangland Appeal Takes and Unexpected Turn,_  the headline states.

_In an unexpected turn of events, the appeal of what seemed to be an open and shut case confirming the guilt of Sean McBride, 39 year-old Manchester nightclub owner, in the murder of gang-member Jimmy Monk in March 2014, is now revealing a series of deep holes in a police investigation that may have led to the conviction of an innocent man -_

_Well,_  she thinks: at least they've got the media on their side now, that's  _something_. Clive isn't exactly your average Guardianista, though, so she's not exactly sure why he's sending her this, really, especially since they haven't talked in days, until he sends her another text, says:  _I hope he or she will look like that. I don't think I've ever looked this good._

She frowns, scrolls back up trying to find what he's on about when -  _yeah, okay._

The image was loading when she first clicked so she didn't see it but now, she gets it. The fact is: this isn't the first time. She's had court artists draw her clients before, and there have been a few pictures of her in the press, but true, this is different. It's a sketch, hand drawn, almost entirely black and white, and she's alone in it, standing in court with the wooden decorum around her, a manila file open on the lectern. Her mouth is slightly open, mid-argument, finger adding to a detail by pointing at something on her papers. She's got her hair tied back, wig on; it's funny: she doesn't know what she projects in court, really. She looks confident, sure, like herself but also someone else, the kind of person she wants to be when she holds onto her desk to keep her hands from shaking. They painted her lips red, she smiles, the only dash of colour in the drawing.

_Martha Costello Q.C._ the legend reads,  _representing Mr McBride._

It's an odd thought, really, one she's very, very rarely had in the past but looking objectively at a court sketch of herself, now, she thinks she looks beautiful.

She smiles, quiet in the night, types:  _I don't think I have either._

For about a minute afterwards, she sees the dots of the answer he's typing appear and disappear as he hesitates on what to say next. She gives him privacy, sets her phone back on the counter until it beeps.

_Now, you're just fishing ;)._

She chuckles, shakes her head, until the reality of  _them_  downs on her and her fingers hover over her keyboard for a good while, too. She wishes he were here, by her side, and  _I miss you_ , she almost types, before deleting her words, writes:  _Thanks, Clive,_  and hits send.

She looks strong in that drawing, too.

.

By Thursday, they're coming up on top but she feels exhausted, more tired than she's ever been. The only thing that keeps her going, it feels, is the adrenaline, the feeling of her heart beating fast against her chest as she meets Nick outside court. Today is the big day. Today, they have DCI Fitzpatrick on the stand.

She's  _ready_. She's spent hours working towards this, knows her questions by heart, the route from a to b, to c, knows how to nail him lying on the stand like she couldn't last time. She's  _prepared_ , hasn't slept. Nick rolls his eyes when he sees the bags under hers, but she's  _ready_.

"How did you come to suspect Sean?"

She's methodical. Questions after question. When she reviewed the case, she knew it'd be the first. Sean got arrested just two hours after the murder, so how did they know? The body was reported by an anonymous 999 call, probably the killer, upon reflection, someone from the Monk family. Someone who might have put them onto Sean.

"The family mentioned their son had had a business disagreement with Mr McBride."

"So, you relied on the information provided by notorious gang members?"

"Who'd just lost a son. We do this every time, it's called an investigation."

He hates her already, she muses, which is fine: the feeling is mutual. She thinks of what Mickey Joy said, how they were two sides of the same coin and well, no, she thinks: at least she's not corrupt. "Okay," she says, looking up. "So you hear the victim had a business disagreement with my client. What do you do then?"

"We decided we wanted to gather more information so we visited Mr McBride's club."

"Was Sean there?"

"No. His business partner was, Mr Brannigan."

Martha looks up; her pen stops doodling on her pad. "So, you did know Mr Brannigan."

"Met him during this investigation, yes."

"And what did Mr Brannigan say?"

"He didn't know anything. Said that Sean had gone to see Jimmy and that he didn't know where his business partner was, or where his gun was."

"Sounds to me like he did know  _something_ , then," she hints, smiling. "Almost like he was waiting for you to ask."

"What do you mean?"

She purses her lips, lets silence fill the room again, pauses to think. It's too soon to attack him, already, so she shakes her head, changes the subject.

"What did you do afterwards, before arresting my client? Did you check Mr Brannigan's story?"

"We did our due diligence, as always."

Martha smiles, breathes.  _One, two, three,_  she counts. "Are you incompetent, DCI Fitzpatrick?" she asks and watches her witness's mouth fall, like facing a cliff.

" _What?_ "

"See, I'm asking the question because Mr Brannigan pretty much confirmed to us yesterday that he took the Monk family's money so, I'm asking you, DCI Fitzpatrick, how could you do your 'due diligence' as you call it, and not know about this? How could you not understand that your witness was playing you, supported by the Monk family to feed his business partner to the wolves?" she speaks, quick, confident, her voice carrying all the way down to the back of the room. "Again, DCI Fitzpatrick, are you completely incompetent or are you lying to us?"

Fitzpatrick glares, jaw clenched, and if he could spit at her, Martha is pretty sure he would. "No, I'm not incompetent, Miss Costello. And what you're referring to is a theory that isn't supported by any of the evidence we have. Again, round hole, square peg."

Martha smirks at that, shakes her head, fakes a frown. "So, the fact that we've proved that Mr Brannigan has been receiving bribes for months, now, and the fact that the blood on Sean's jacket actually seems to corroborate the idea that he attempted to take Jimmy Monk's pulse rather than shoot him,  _and_  the fact that we have no explanation why, despite the high amount of manpower and money that was put into this investigation, the evidence was just produced days into the trial – all of that doesn't mean anything to you, DCI Fitzpatrick? All those questions you can't answer –"

CW interrupts, then, stands up to speak: "The defence is badgering the witness, my Lord –"

"No, I don't think, so, Miss Warwick," Lord Hayes responds, to Martha's astonishment. She looks up, her breath coming out a bit short. "I think Miss Costello is asking questions about this police investigation, the answers to which we would all very much want to know. Mr Fitzpatrick, please answer the question."

"Oh come on, you've cooked yourself up your little appeal –"

"Frankly, there are two options here," Martha interrupts, presents, her gaze hovering between him and the bench. "One," she reinforces the count with her fingers: "It's negligence. You decided it was Sean and didn't look twice at the evidence that didn't go your way because you were lazy and wanted this solved quickly," she articulates, staring back. "Or, two, it's fraud. You knew the Monk's family plan from the start, knew Brannigan was playing you, and frankly, DCI Fitzpatrick, I don't know where that leaves us."

"My learned friend is making allegations she can't support and is forgetting that the arresting officer is not the accused, here, my Lord –"

"Well, maybe, he should be," Martha snaps, a bit too loud, covering CW's last words and immediately curses herself for it. She needs to be smart about this, walking the line between irreverence and rudeness like a court jester, these days.

" _Miss Costello_ ," she hears Lord Hayes reprimand and bites her lip, apologises.

She sighs, takes a second to think. She's got this thing she uses sometimes, leaning in closer to the witness as much as she possibly can without actually moving from her spot and staring into their eyes. It makes them think they're alone. His eyes are blue, she notices, a very, very light shade, like that of older men in retirement homes. It might work with him, she thinks, against all odds.

She asks a few more questions he can't answer but her voice is tame, now, and for minutes on end, she refuses to let go of his gaze. He gets aggressive, moans but she doesn't flinch, doesn't shout back, just lets him get there, patient, like a lioness surveilling its prey, walking him from point a to point b.

"What happened, DCI Fitzpatrick?" she finally asks, again, when the time is right, her voice barely louder than normal speech, a whisper in a courtroom. "What happened in the McBride case?"

He's not fuming as much, anymore, just quiet, and she wonders if that's the card she should play maybe, some sort of intimacy, for now, at least.

"You tell me you're a good cop. So, show it," she adds. Her heart hammers, in her chest, she has to remind herself to breathe out to keep her hands from shaking. "Was Mr Brannigan a grass? Did you know him before?"

"I told you," Fitzpatrick repeats, shaking his head. "On the lives of my children –"

She nods, shakes her head. "So, what then?"

And there, he flips. She feels it, in his look, holds her breath, the room so quiet she hears the sound of her own blood pumping in her neck. Fitzpatrick tries to glance away; she holds onto him and refuses to let go. "You have to understand –" he starts.

His stare drifts to the judges, to CW, confused; Martha shifts at her desk, taps her finger against the wood. "Look at me," she calls and he does, his eyes finding hers again. "Tell  _me_."

And _there_ , she gets him. "We were trying to protect him –" he starts.

This time, she doesn't interrupt. She lets him finish.

.

"Well, shit," she hears in her ear as they leave the courtroom, Nick walking fast behind her. They stop on the street outside, she's shaking from the adrenaline still coursing through her veins, the self-restraint she had to exercise not to betray anything in front of Fitzpatrick.

She looks at Nick, thinks:  _yeah,_   _shit._

They're standing by the gates, close to where she used to smoke when she still could and it's odd, how her heart doesn't seem to slow down. She doesn't want to stop here so she keeps walking, crossing the street to head back into Chambers. She feels restless, keeps turning Fitzpatrick's words inside her head. They knew he wasn't guilty, she thinks, from the fucking start. "That was unbelievable, Martha," Nick says and smiles at her.

His features are bit blurry, before her eyes; she blinks, shakes her head, keeps herself focused to avoid the people walking on Fleet Street until they reach the passage down to Middle Temple Lane.

"I mean, I think it would have felt better if it had actually been this great conspiracy rather than them just –"

"Just what?" she snaps, glancing up, her heels tapping a rhythm against the pavement. "Hearing Fitzpatrick admit that the Monk family told them it was Sean, which they believed at face value, rushed to make an arrest because it would look bad in the press if the gang killed him first  _and then_  covered up their fuck up? Sean's in jail because of them, Nick. It makes me fucking sick."

They make it through the gates and down the cobblestone path for a bit, taking a left towards the church. "Well, when you say it like that –" Nick says, sighs. "It was a great cross, Martha. Best one I've ever seen."

She's about to counter with another jab about how it comes too bloody late but strangely, she can't find her voice. They're walking under the archways, just the both of them, trying to cross from Pump Court to the other side – it's ironic, really, how close her new Chambers are to Shoe Lane - when she stops, still. The sun is bright, white light flashing before her eyes, she feels Nick's look on her but can't distinguish his features, can hear her own blood pumping in her ears, again. She thinks of that copper, of Sean, and it goes  _thump, thump, thump_ , against her neck. Nick speaks, she thinks, she hears a vague echo in her head but  _thump, thump, thump,_  her heartbeat goes in her ear, and covers his words. Nick moves, but suddenly, there are about a million arches around her, her head spins, and –

.

Eyes closed, she hears footsteps. Voices, vaguely, like from the other side of a canyon.

"She just fainted –"

"What do you mean, she 'just  _fainted?'_ "

"I don't know, okay? She was angry, cross-examining DCI Fitzpatrick, and then I said something and she just –"

"Oh, for God's sake!" she hears one of the voices say before she hears running and feels someone sit down next to her, touching her shoulder. The voice is familiar – of course, it is, - and it's not Nick's. She sighs, wishes it were.

"Martha?" Clive says, shaking her a bit. "Martha?"

Her eyes open on his face, vision still slightly blurry. She sees blond hair, blue eyes; her back  _hurts_. She closes her eyelids again. _Back to sleep -_

"Nick, she's awake," Clive says, too loud; she rolls her eyes. When she looks up again, another face joins Clive's blurry features in her field of vision: dark hair, blue eyes, too.

"Martha, are you okay?" Nick asks, voice full of concern she lets out a moan, tries to move –

As soon as she rises from the ground a bit, pushing herself up on her elbows, the Earth starts spinning again; she feels someone's hand behind her head before it hits the ground.

_Okay_ ,  _maybe that wasn't such a good idea, then,_ she thinks.

"Marth –" Clive starts; she hears herself sigh.

"'M fine," she groans. Her back hurts, her head hurts, her neck hurts but the checklist stops there, thankfully.

"Are you –" Clive starts and behind her annoyance, she can't help but smile a little at the worry in his voice. He may not love her, anymore, but he definitely loves that baby, doesn't he?

"'re fine," she amends, groaning as she tries to move her head again. "'f I'd miscarried, I'd know," she adds, the words coming out a bit louder and stronger than she meant them to. It was meant as a joke but Clive doesn't seem to share her sense of humour and throws a worried, questioning glance at Nick, who in turn throws it back at her. She almost lets a laugh escape her lips but it quickly turns into a somewhat painful cough when her body shakes a bit. Her mouth is dry; she's thirsty – hungry, too – definitely doesn't feel ready to get up quite yet, so: "Water," she mutters as she shuts her eyes again, listens to the wind rustling in the leaves of trees and for the first time in months:  _rests._

.

Clive drives her home, later. They leave her car in the car park near Chambers and take his; she's so tired she falls asleep as soon as her head hits the seat, lolling between the headrest and the window to her left. She only wakes up when the car stops moving, twenty minutes later, parks in the street outside her building.

She blinks a few times, warming up to her surroundings. It's summer again, strangely enough, and the leaves of the trees in her courtyard gently shade part of the street, green and lively, breeze slowly rocking the top branches.

"Thanks," she says, stealing a glance at him.

This is when she should get out, she knows, walk back to her flat and try to forget about him again until the next time they run into each other. His glance catches hers, though, eyes slightly green with the light cast by the sun through the leaves of the trees. "You should sleep," he tells her, his voice quiet, not as an order but more as a plea, as someone who  _cares._

"You're only saying that because you're on Caroline's side," she smiles, looking up at him. "I should  _work_  is what I should do. Speech tomorrow," she adds, running a hand over her face. She looks at him, sighs. "I need to win this."

"From what I hear, you already have."

She rolls her eyes a bit, not at what he says but at what  _people_  say, and the things she's been reading in the press. "It doesn't mean anything," she says, shaking her head. "You and I both know, until the verdict comes out –"

"Marth, you're going to win this," he tells her, holding her gaze. His hands fall from the wheel to his lap, he turns a bit to look at her. "I know it," he adds, smiles. "Nick knows it. The whole of Middle Temple bloody knows it and is hanging onto your every word."

She looks away, her jaw clenched. "Well, if I do," she says and catches his glance again, like she can't choose whether or not she wants to see his face. "It won't be thanks to you."

Clive takes the hit, quiet, for a bit. "No," he says, finally, looking at his fingers tapping a rhythm against the leather of the wheel. "It won't."

She didn't think he would agree, frankly, was gearing for another fight, so she doesn't know what to say to that, really, sits in silence for a little while longer, watching the dried stains made by the rain clouding the glass of his windshield. She likes her cars to be pretty - he made enough fun of her about  _that_ before _,_ saying she only picked her current one because she looked good in it (he wasn't  _wrong_ , in truth) – but at least, it means she has them cleaned regularly. She steals a glance at him and it reminds her of the end with Jerôme, how she felt like she getting pushed out of a train she didn't necessarily want to let go.

She didn't necessarily want to hold onto it either, though.

"I'm not on her side, you know?" she hears him add and freezes, her fingers on the handle of the door. "Caroline," he specifies, glance trained on the street, through the windshield. "You said –" he speaks, stops, shakes his head. "I'm not on Caroline's side," he clarifies, catching her glance, this time.

She acknowledges his words with a nod but doesn't say anything else, for a while; she feels his look on the side of her face but it's her turn to avoid him, now, to stare out the window, at the lady walking by with her Jack Russell on a leash. The car goes completely quiet when he pulls the key from the ignition and the low hum of the air conditioning dies; she looks at him but his gaze is fixed on the wheel. She breathes in, breathes out. "What are you doing Tuesday morning?" she asks, before she can think.

"I, er, don't know –"

"I have an appointment," she says, quickly. She was trying to push it to the week after, earlier, actually, because it's next week and she's terrified she won't get to be there when the verdict comes in, but they said she was already late, already at fifteen weeks, something, so –

"What kind of appointment?"

There's a hint of worry in his voice when he speaks, looks up at her.  _Yeah,_  she guesses, a few weeks back, it could have been  _that_ kind of appointment, too.

She smiles, now, though, bites her bottom lip, looking down at her hands. "Scan," she says. It's odd: she feels a bit silly,  _shy_ , telling him. "We, er," she hesitates, looks up, catches his gaze. "We get to see it," she breathes, a discreet smile tugging at her lips again. "If you want to come, I mean," she pauses, though, quickly, shakes her head, rambles on, doesn't want to let him speak, doesn't let him say no. "And again," she adds. "You might be right and I might lose it or it may not even have a heartbeat but –"

She feels his hand on her thigh for half a second before it moves away; it stops her mid-sentence. It feels cold, when he takes it off, like something's missing. "Marth, I –"

"Don't –"

It's the second time she says it, isn't it? The second time she doesn't want to hear whatever he has to say, doesn't know if she'll ever want to hear what he has to say now. Another fight, or an apology, or something in between she just –

"What I want to say is," she speaks, decisive, hands on her knees. "If you want to come, come. If you don't, you don't have to."

He catches her gaze, then, and she sees something in his eyes, something she used to see before he kissed her, sometimes. "I'd love to," he says, instead, and smiles.

She nods, her hand finding the handle of the door again - this time, he doesn't stop her. "Okay," she tells him, as the car clicks open, the hot air from the outside hitting the side of her body first, before making its way into the car. "I'll text you."

.

It's later, after she's taken a bath, eaten and napped for a bit that she opens the bag he gave her. She'd left the car already; he ran after her and put it in her hand before she could even open her front door, asked her not to get mad at him about it and disappeared. It's this kind of solid, paper and plastic shopping bag, coloured a pale shade of blue, the brand stated in white script on the front. She told herself she'd open it tomorrow, when the trial was over and it wouldn't matter if she actually did get mad, but she's drinking tea, now, sitting at her kitchen table, looking for inspiration to write her speech, when she sees it, remembers it, and cuts the little bit of tape shutting the bag together with a pair of scissors. They're wrapped in tissue paper but as soon as she sees them, she knows why he thought she might scream.

She'd insisted, back then. No maternity clothes before fifteen weeks, at least, and no baby things before then, either. 'I'm serious, Clive,' she laughed as he browsed the Internet for stupid bodysuits that said things like:  _I was Daddy's fastest swimmer._  She broke her promise about maternity clothes, the other day, so really, she can't be mad at him for breaking his.

They're tiny shoes, the tiniest shoes she's ever seen, in fact, she's pretty sure the both of them fit in her hand. They're wool, soft, dark blue – almost black - with a line of white at the top and bottom, big red pompoms on the front. They make her think of a flower, a carnation maybe. She studies them before closing her eyes and smiles, large and honest, plays with them for a bit, holding them into her free palm.

The thing is: there's a card, too, inside the bag. It's the first thing she saw when she opened it, let the tip of her finger trace over his handwriting and swallowed heavily, closed her eyes, too. She takes it again, now, and smiles, bittersweet.

_For January,_  he wrote, his script quick on the paper. She can picture him, scrawling the words at the edge of his desk in Chambers, on top of a binder, slipping the card inside the bag before rushing into court. Like a secret, like things you can't say.

_Love,_

_Clive._

She reads the words, again and again until she can picture them from memory. Her other hand rests against the bump of her stomach and she feels the rise and fall of her breaths, hopes it breathes, too.

She sighs, her hand against the fabric of her shirt, whispers: "Stay. Please."

_I love you,_  she thinks.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] GlaxoSmithKline Services Unlimited v Commission (2009) C-513/06 is the case Jerôme was working on because I'm a nerd and I know shit like this.
> 
> [2] Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (again, if you're super interested):
> 
> 1\. In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgment shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interest of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.
> 
> 2\. Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.
> 
> 3\. Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:
> 
> (a) to be informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him;
> 
> (b) to have adequate time and the facilities for the preparation of his defence;
> 
> (c) to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing or, if he has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require;
> 
> (d) to examine or have examined witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him;
> 
> (e) to have the free assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand or speak the language used in court.
> 
> .
> 
> Hey, I hope you guys liked this! Frankly, even if you didn't, don't hesitate to leave a comment, I love hearing from everyone and knowing people are still reading Silk fic, haha.
> 
> In terms of timeline for the next update, I'm sorry, I really don't know. I'm planning to take a couple of weekends off writing to recharge a bit as I've been working on these last chapters non-stop since December but if you want to be kept in the loop, again, Tumblr is the place to be (in truth, it's not anymore, it's just me ranting in the void on there, really). What I do know though is that there are one or two chapters more (depending on things), three at most, and that don't worry, I'm going to finish this. Like, I haven't written +90,000 words and spent almost a year on this to keep you hanging two chapters from the end so again, don't worry, I'll get there, I'm just a bit slow :D.
> 
> Anyway, all my love, and have a great Sunday!


	11. xi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were supposed to be twelve chapters but it was past 3 a.m. last night when I was editing the last draft of this and thought: 'No, that's it.'
> 
> Tomorrow night, I will write a post on Tumblr with more coherent thoughts about what this fic means and what it's meant to me, this past year. If you're interested, see you there. If not, I would like to say thanks. Thanks to all the reviewers, the commenters and the people who sent me kind thoughts on different corners of the internet; your words truly mean the world to me. Thank you to asummerevening, on Tumblr, for being the first person I spoke to about this being finished, last night. I would also like to thank the quiet ones, the silent readers, for their presence and regularity and hope that you'll send me a message, this time around. I promise I don't bite. Lastly, I'd like to thank above everything the amazing Orbythesea, for her support, kindness and willingness to listen to me rant about this bloody fic for months on end, even when she doesn't watch Silk. I hope that you will, someday.
> 
> To the anonymous who commented a few days ago hoping that I get inspired again soon, here are 15,000 words for you.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Pebblysand.

.

xi.

.

_They say girls shouldn't be tough and mums should raise their kids at home, but baby I know that that isn't true, 'cause your mum's the toughest person I know._

_I want to raise you to be like her and watch you show the world how to do it on your own._

Growing Up – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Ed Sheeran

.

.

It will be late afternoon. She'll be standing to her left, by the side of the window, the sun coming through the glass as she'll speak. It will be court and wooden benches, and tapestries, and she will be part of a decorum that she loves to hate. A ritual, immutable traditions, what the court in Johnny Foster's case would have called deference – or reverence, maybe.

Sometimes, she wonders how they got there. Years ago, juniors in Magistrate's Court, underground rooms that permanently reeked of their daily procession of drunks, heroin addicts and all of society's poorest, most distressed failures, to appeals, now, where she's got the time and means to worry about what her speech is going to sound like. She sits at her kitchen table, surrounded with a pair of baby shoes, empty cups of tea and half a dozen open binders in front of her and it's kind of a secret but even after over ten years, she still writes everything down. Her speeches, the questions that she asks on cross, she scribbles them by hand, writes sentences and repeats them out loud, draws lines over the words that she doesn't like. Replaces them, reads them again. It's a bit of a joke, by now, but she does like the sound of her own voice. She knows how it works, what it can do, the higher pitch that it takes when she gets angry, the way it breaks for a breath at a comma, pauses at a full stop. She's learnt to let the right things sink in.

For instance, she won't open with a quote, hates people who open with quotes. In university, they called that an argument from authority. She's never liked authority very much.

Her speeches, they always start the same. ' _My Lords,'_ she writes, Court of Appeal. Sometimes, it's  _Your Honour_ , sometimes,  _Members of the Jury_. She likes juries. Clive calls them dumb and irrational but they're people. She likes  _people._ This time, though, she couldn't convince them. So here they are, she guesses.

' _Sean McBride_ ,' she writes. The words roll off her tongue like that day when he said he used to think they'd both go to heaven and she called him a piece of work. Her pen stops. She doesn't know where to begin.

'Tell a story,' Alan said, once upon a time. She was younger; he was wiser. 'A good one, that is.'

Well, the problem is that this time, she's got too many stories to tell. There's that one time when she screamed at Sean for a good half hour after he pretended to put a spider up in her shirt. That other time when they went to the beach in Blackpool and she pushed him in the water, fully clothed, freezing, his hair drenched and cold as he hung onto her, brought her down with him. Sometimes, she laughed so hard she cried. Sometimes, she actually cried, too. She kissed him on a prison bench and the walls stood around them with moulding growing at the window frame, the guards' heavy boots hitting the ground of the corridor outside. Maybe that's why they say ' _never represent a friend_ ,' she thinks, maybe it's because of the memories.

_Sean McBride was arrested on the 24_ _th_ _of March 2014 for the murder of Jimmy Monk,_ she writes again,  _factual_. She knows that's what Alan would have told her:  _don't make it personal, Martha._  So, she writes the story of his case. Talks about the first instance and the appeal, and the testimonies and the facts that don't align. His only possible verdict: not guilty.

.

Around 3 a.m., she sort of drowses for a bit, has this weird nightmare where she's waiting around with him in a hotel room and there's a knock on the door, and she thinks:  _they're going to kill us._ She barely has time to see the end of the barrel of a gun before her eyelids flutter open because well, you can't die in your own dreams.

"Ready?" Nick asks, the next morning. They're standing outside court waiting for Sean's solicitor and all Martha can think about is how badly she wants a fag.

"Ready."

.

In Nottingham, Clive had smiled, she remembers. He'd looked at her when they left court with a loud and  _triumphant_  not guilty verdict and said: 'You never stick to the script, do you?'

She'd never really thought about it like that before, but the way she writes things and the way she says them don't necessarily match up. Sometimes, she goes off track after a page or two, sometimes even before the second sentence. She thinks writing it out the night before or during the fifteen minute break the judges award in the lower courts is just a trick for her brain to collect her thoughts, to organise things that should not only make sense to her, but to other people, too. She'd always guessed that's how everybody worked before his words rung in her ear that afternoon.

She laughed, asked: 'Are you complaining?'

They were walking down the streets of a new, unfamiliar place; she had no idea of where they were going. They'd had thirteen co-defendants, though, and only two not guilty-s. Nothing else really mattered, then.

'That's not what I said,' he grinned. 'Just a bit unpredictable.'

She puffed out a laugh, caught his gaze and bit her lip.  _Flirt_. 'By now, you should know that I am  _very_ unpredictable, Clive.'

.

"My Lords," she says, now. "Sean McBride –"

Stops. Just like the way she stopped last night, when she wrote, she stops now. Closes her eyes. Breathes.

"I was told Sean McBride reached out to me for his defence because I'm the only lawyer he knows," she says, a quick smile tugging at the corner of her lips.  _We grew up together,_  she thinks, and remembers running her fingers in his jet black hair as his stare now digs holes into the back of her head. "I guess I don't know if that was a blessing or a curse," she adds, lightly, gets a few subtle grins from her audience. She needs to win them over, she knows, not bore them with things they already know.

_Of course,_  she smiles,  _this is personal_.

"This is the most important case of my career," she speaks, then, and hopes they really understand what that means. For the next thirty minutes, she knows that she'll go deep, detail evidence, tear CW's case apart like she's been doing for a week, talk circumstances, reasonable doubt, and mention all the things that matter, that she's got written down on her papers. But what she wants them to know, too, is why it matters. "Not because I know him," she adds, her gaze focused on the bench. "But because this is about justice."

.

When the court retires to deliberate, she goes to see him. Her plan was to go for a walk, initially, like her father used to when he couldn't sleep. He'd take her hand in his, after dinner, and they'd walk down to the shop get ice cream that melted in her hands. She had these yellow rain boots on her feet, she remembers, never wanted to take them off.

"What do you think?" Sean asks when she sees him, barely looking up from the floor.

She doesn't know if it's the homesickness or the adrenaline but she doesn't walk, this time around. The thoughts won't stop swirling in her head. Could she have made that point better? Said that differently?

Her speech is only the start of a new waiting game.

"I don't know."

It's only Friday, now, the decision won't come in until Monday afternoon, at least.

Nick is in the room so she thinks that's what stops him from saying anything more until he glances up at her and smiles, lightly touches her forearm. "I do know other lawyers, you know?" he says, makes her laugh.

.

She took Clive on a walk, she remembers, when they came back to London after the  _triumph_. 'What else have you got to do?' she asked, smiling, knowing full well he had about as much work on his plate as she did and about as little desire to actually go back to Chambers and do it. The sunshine was light on his face as they strolled along gravel paths in the park, the shade of her sunglasses adding a slight tint to his skin, daisies everywhere in the grass.

She likes the walks best in early Spring when the sun's bright but the wind's cold against her cheeks, likes the streets and the canals, and the birds in the parks. Sometimes, she climbs up Primrose Hill and looks at the buildings far away, wonders the kind of defence she would draft for herself.

Every time he glanced at her, it brought her back to the startled look he'd thrown her way in the morning, when he'd opened his eyes and found her still there in bed, staring right back at him. 'You're still here,' she heard him say, his voice groggy and unfiltered, surprised. She lay flat on her stomach under the quilt, her glance falling upon his.

'It's  _my_  hotel room, Clive,' she smiled. Didn't want to point out that considering his form, she should have been the one worried. 'Where do you want me to go?'

He laughed next to her and when they got back to London that afternoon, they ate ice cream – his suggestion, not hers – found a bench to sit on in the park, watched kids play football. She told him about her dad and how secretly relieved she'd feel every time she got back to London after driving up to see him, in the last few years of his life, how much she loved coming here and getting her life back, as though nothing had ever happened.

'Some things are meant to stay in one place,' she said.

He smiled, a short, quiet laugh escaping his lips in a sigh and nodded, looked away.

He had one of those cones where gelato comes out of a machine in a spiral, with sprinkles on top; she made sure he got some at the tip of his nose, laughed so hard she made him smile again, too.

'What?' she grinned, curious and amused, swallowing a bit of ice.

He shook his head and glanced away for a fraction of a second before focusing back on her. 'You have a great laugh, Martha Costello,' he said and kissed her, her mouth slightly open under his. He tasted like sugar and vanilla, like something good you can't defend.

.

"Come on," Nick says when they leave the courthouse. "I'll buy you a drink."

It's starting to rain outside, droplets gradually tainting more and more ground. She doesn't feel like getting drenched, today, takes a left towards the pub.

Smiles: "Okay."

.

They spend the evening laughing at his antics, from the retelling of his many etiquette faux-pas when he met Niamh's parents for the first time to the fact that he forgot to get her flowers for her birthday last week.

"Apologise," Martha tells him with a grin, as he rolls his eyes.

Sometimes, she wishes her life were as simple as his.

"What?" she asks, later, when she catches him throwing her a strange look.

"I just hadn't seen you smile in a while," he replies.

.

For good measure, she drives up to Bury, that weekend. In Bolton, there's no house, anymore, and home hasn't felt like home in a long while. She pulls up in Roy's driveway and already kind of wants to leave, maybe go check up on their old place, find out if the family that moved in have finally repainted the door, if their children have found out about the neighbour's roof. It's childish, maybe, but she misses the photographs on the wall and her father's clothes stored in the basement.

Her mum does seem happy to see her, though, has her settling in "Dick's old bedroom" (Roy's son, Martha gathers), gives her a tiny, baby bodysuit as a present, white with sunflowers on – "I thought it would work for a boy or a girl," she says, smiling, and Martha says her thanks, polite, trying not to think of the heavy, nervous weight that rests on her stomach whenever she thinks of the baby.

The appointment for her scan is getting closer and closer, now, and every time she thinks about it, she thinks they're going to say that it's gone. Or without a heartbeat. Or not viable for some other reason that she won't understand. She tries not to talk to it, or about it, tries not to put her hand on the bump on her belly too often, to pretend that it's not there until she actually knows it is.

Her mother, on the other hand, won't  _shut up_  about it. It's somewhat odd, frankly, because she wasn't nearly as excited last time around but now, it's constant talk of cribs and strollers and butterflies in the air. The weather is shit (as always), but frankly it was either that or walking circles in her flat in London thinking about Sean possibly rotting in jail until the end of times so strangely enough, her mother's misplaced excitement is somewhat preferable. Martha doesn't know if she's trying to make amends for her reaction on the phone the other night or if the interest is genuine but on a certain level, it's nice to feel like someone else cares.

Roy, however, is pretty much the antithesis of tactfulness. At lunch on Saturday, he quizzes her about the father, before she's even had time to unpack. "Roy, honey, I think Martha's a bit tired," her mum tries, in an attempt to steer the conversation away from sensitive topics. For her to step in, Martha thinks, she must  _really_  look like shit.

"I'm just  _asking_ , here, Maureen," Roy counters, looking at Martha. A battle of wills ensues and in the end, Martha's the one who gives up first, casts her mother a look that says it's  _fine_ , that she's not going to get angry over this.

She's spent too much time being angry over Clive, lately.

So,  _yes_ , she says, she met him at work. No, they don't live together. No, she laughs, he's not  _married_. Yes, he knows about the baby. Yes, they're going to share responsibilities.

"Do you know his parents?"

Now, there's a trick question so,  _of course_ , it's her mum's only one. If she says no: Clive doesn't take her seriously. If she says yes: there'll be the backlash of why her mother has not actually met him. And sure, he did come to Bolton on her birthday, but a) they didn't talk and b) her mum doesn't know it's him. So: "I'm sorry," she says, making a show of yawning as she gets up from her chair before anyone can really object. "I'm exhausted, I think I'll go rest for a bit. Thanks for the meal, Mum."

The difference between now and when she was a teenager, again, is that she's learnt to avoid unnecessary headaches.

.

She dozes off for about half an hour afterwards (guesses she wasn't completely lying about the exhaustion), dreams about the baby being dead in her womb and wakes up thinking that perhaps, there's a reason why she's never been a fan of mid-afternoon naps. Nick's texted to check up on her in the interim so she replies, dutifully, asks how London is doing without her and if scrolling through his phone as he walks is still the best way for him to bump into people.

She teases, sure, but that's just because Nick texts her often. It's a generational thing, she supposes. He texts her about the case, about Chambers, or sometimes just to say hi, when he's done something and is actively trying to get back into her good graces. In the past few weeks, he's been consistently on the top of her list of messages received, although she's noticed, discretely looking over his shoulder, that Niamh is consistently on top of his. Below him, Charlotte remains, her messages always short and to the point: a hearing has been rescheduled, a late return needs tending to or, of course, the usual request:  _Miss, a word_. Jo is third at the moment, because her five-people tribe is in London next week and she wanted family-friendly dining recommendations. Frankly, Martha didn't have much of a clue on that one.

Then, well. Sometimes, she almost texts him. It's a bit of a game with herself: she opens the thread, looks at the last messages they exchanged when he told her she looked good in that court sketch from the Guardian and then types something funny, or silly, that she'd like to tell him. Now, for instance, she smiles as her fingers hit the keyboard:  _I think my mum wants to meet the guy who got her daughter pregnant._

It's funny, would have made him laugh, weeks ago. She wouldn't send it for the world, now, of course, but sometimes, she lets her mind wander and guess what he'd respond, make out the sound of his speech in her ear, just like she used to phone Billy's answering machine just to remember the way he'd say his name. She wonders how wrong it would feel if she admitted to herself that she misses him.

As she types, though, suddenly, she stops, almost at the end of the last word. Three dots appear on his side of the conversation, then go blank.

Quickly, she deletes whatever she had typed, hopes he didn't notice the dots on her end. Sits up, phone in her hand, doesn't move.

For a few seconds, nothing happens and  _shit_ , she curses,  _what the hell did he want to say?_

She waits a bit, wonders if he's gone, now. Should she ask? Ignore it? Write something insignificant to make him think that's what she wanted to tell him in the first place?

_Oh, what the hell?_ the voice in her head says. W _hat are you? Sixteen?_

She starts typing again:  _I –_

Except then, of course, his dots return.  _Alright,_ she decides, deleting her own one-letter word, she's just going to let him type, then.

But then again, his dots disappear. She waits, watches a minute go by: nothing. Maybe it was just a bug, she muses, maybe he wasn't typing anything at all.

She's about to give up, lock her screen and head downstairs to see what her mum and Roy are up to when her phone starts vibrating in her hand. Clive's name is right there, she sees, and all she'd have to do to hear his voice, now, would be to take the call. Sometimes, she wishes Billy could still call, too.

(She saw him, this morning. Or thought she did, anyway. She'd left her car in Chambers so she took the Tube to Temple station before heading to Bury, stopped at the Prêt on Fleet Street for some food. She was sitting at a table, eating a croissant when this guy walked in. Fifty-something, short, large shoulders, she thought –

_Pathetic._

He turned around and when she saw his face, she thought of the way Billy had greeted her and Clive when they got back from Nottingham, trying desperately to fit around each other like nothing had happened.

"You look different, Miss," he commented as the both of them entered the clerks' room to pick up their mail. Clive had his back to Billy, she remembers, raised a discreet eyebrow at her. "The Midlands treat you well?"

She smiled, mail in hand, made her way back to the door. "Just a different lipstick, Billy," she lied.

"Oh, don't change it, Miss," he spoke as she moved back towards the door. She could see him glance at Clive from the corner of her eye, didn't quite know what to make of it. Clive smiled. Something naughty and annoyingly cocky. "You know us boys love the red.")

.

She doesn't ghost Clive intentionally. It's just that by the time she's snapped out of the memory, her phone's stopped ringing. She waits for a voicemail that never comes. She could call back, of course, but he felt close, for a minute, and evaporated again. Honestly, she doesn't know if she wants to know what he's got to say, doesn't know if she wants to catch him. She overheard him speak on the phone a few days back and his voice haunted her for days, after that. It was dark, late, she was leaving Chambers and saw him leaning against one of the buildings on the way out.

'Okay, Mum,' she heard him say, in a way that made her think that things were anything but  _okay,_ really. 'Flowers and apologies, I'm sure that will work.'

There was a bit of silence, on his end, and she knew she should have left. If not secret, the conversation was private. Yet, as soon as he opened his mouth again, she founds herself rooted to the ground, unable to move. In hindsight, she thinks, it's not what he said that got to her, it's the way his words cut. She knew the story but had never heard him speak like that before.

'Oh, don't you dare use Dad and you for relationship advice,' he argued, curt, cold. She barely dared to breathe. 'He fucked his way around town for twenty years and you barely even blinked.'

Later, she heard him sigh, apologise. She stood, immobile in the dark, could picture him shaking his head, the exhaustion in his words. 'I shouldn't have said that, I just –' he started, struggled to explain. 'I just miss her, is all.'

.

Later, her mother talks her into stepping out of the house for a bit, walk Roy's dog down the river path. It's a Spaniel, white with brown patches over his back and ears, long hair muddy at the belly. He looks happy, Martha thinks as she looks at him wigging his tail running up and down the grass. She glances at her phone as her Mum bends down to pick up his ball, thinks she probably should text Clive, for all the things that she can't say.

_10 o'clock,_  she writes, fingers hovering over the keyboard. This time, she waits for dots on his side that don't appear.  _For the scan, on Tuesday. St Thomas'._

When he answers, they're on their way home. About to cross the street, she's got Padfoot (Roy's granddaughter picked the name, apparently) on a leash, pulls out her phone from the pocket of her jeans.  _I'll be there,_  she reads, smiles.  _:)._

"I don't know if you've met his parents," her mum suddenly interrupts, grabbing the leash from her hand. Right, left, they cross to the other side. The dog still has his ball in his mouth, wet with a mix of mud and saliva. "But I can tell that you love him, you know?" she smiles, shrugs, like it's the easiest thing in the world. "It shows on your face when you think about him."

.

She texts him again, later, when the lights are out, wonders if she's turning into Nick.

_I know that we need to talk,_  she writes, quick, doesn't let herself think before she hits send.  _I just need time, okay?_

His response comes within a second, like he knew she was going to get back to him, eventually.  _Okay,_  he just says.

She closes her eyes and hopes to sleep.

.

She drives home on Sunday evening and as soon as she's in London again, the dreams come back. She barely sleeps, lying there staring at the ceiling, thinking of Sean and guns, and life sentences. Monday comes and goes and her phone remains in her hand the whole time, but never rings. It's five o'clock when Nick walks into her room; she's been trying to focus on her next hearing, her next case at the end of the week but all she's done is spend hours reading Wikipedia articles on stuff she's already forgot. Vanessa's working in the office so they step out to talk, walk and sit on a bench by the fountain. She misses Shoe Lane for the view, the little railing they had overlooking the church.

"If it's tomorrow morning –" she starts, hesitant, doesn't know what else to say.

Tomorrow morning is the appointment. Tomorrow morning could be the verdict. Since she can't be in two places at once, she thought of cancelling the appointment this afternoon, thought about wanting to be there if they were to take Sean down again. She rang the hospital in a panic and got this idiot on the phone,  _Natalie_ , and her very patronizing tone. 'You're already at  _fifteen weeks_ , Ma'am,' she said, as if that, in and of itself, was utterly unbelievable. 'Push it back again and we'll soon be at a mid-pregnancy scan. Is that what you want?'

From her tone, Martha gathered that  _no_  was the correct answer and hung up, called the lady a bitch as she nearly threw the phone back onto the receiver.

" _If_ it's tomorrow morning – which it probably won't be," Nick amends, catching her gaze. She guesses he's trying to be reassuring but she's not sure whether just talking about it as a possibility makes her anxiety better or worse. "I'll call you as soon as I know, I promise."

She nods, sighs, watches the water flow in the fountain. It's been a long, hot day; it was thirty-two degrees last time she checked her phone, just wishes there was a tiny, little bit of wind to graze her face.

She sighs, nervously taps her fingers against the fabric of her skirt.

"They're going to refuse the appeal, aren't they?" she says and it's almost as if she's talking to herself, letting the thoughts run past her mouth. "They're going to refuse the appeal tomorrow morning, and then they're going to tell me the baby's not viable."

She speaks the words before she can filter them out, lets her nerves tell Nick things she would never have admitted to him otherwise. Nick knows about the baby – both babies – but they don't talk about it. She doesn't like that this is a weakness that people can see.

She sees him smile, though, reassuring.

"You're being a bit dramatic, don't you think?" he says and she feels the corners of her mouth rise up; she makes herself look away again.

"Is this your way of saying I'm hormonal?" she laughs but  _yeah_ , she guesses that she probably is, a bit.

Nick shakes his head. "Your words, not mine," he says with a smile, before looking at his watch.

"Going home?" she asks as he stands up. She doesn't move, thinks she might stay outside for a while. He smiles down at her.

"Yeah," he shrugs. "Flowers to buy, apologies to make –"

She smiles, nods. "Good," she says, wishing, again, that her life were that simple.

.

The next morning, she's running late. Couldn't make herself get out of bed, then couldn't leave the paperwork she'd started going through at her kitchen table, then again couldn't decide on what to wear. It's ten past ten when she finally makes her way through the entrance of the hospital, down a series of corridors that take her through an outside patio and back inside again, to finally find Clive sitting on a chair outside the exam room. She's opted for a pair of black pregnancy leggings and a long t-shirt in the end, figured that that would be easier to deal with than a work dress. She'll go home to change before going into Chambers, she's decided.

"It's  _fine_ ," Clive gets up as he sees her half-walking, half-running down the corridor. "I told the people who were after us to go in early. We're at 10:20, now," he adds and she hears herself breathe a sigh of relief, setting her handbag on the chair next to him. He sits back down and watches her as she catches her breath.

There's something intriguing in his look when he eyes her up and down, like he's never seen her in leggings and a t-shirt before.

"What?" she says, slightly annoyed, taking her phone in her hand to make sure the ring is on.

"Nothing."

He says that shaking his head, with a smile on his face; she catches his gaze, definitely thinks there's  _something._ "Seriously, Clive,  _what_? Do I have lipstick on my teeth?"

He laughs, then, shakes his head again. She raises an eyebrow at him, there's a strange sheepish look in his eyes when he says: "No. You just look, er," he starts, seems to look for his words. "Actually pregnant, now."

_Oh,_ she thinks.  _That._

She crosses his gaze, frowns, her look follows his to fall on her stomach and well, she guesses she sees herself every day in the mirror so she doesn't notice it much anymore. She  _has_ grown a bit bigger in the last couple of weeks and although she usually hides it under her clothes, the fitted t-shirt and leggings do hug her body pretty tight this morning, so yeah, she guesses he's right –

_I am pregnant_ , she thinks, almost says, but doesn't. She sits down next to him instead, crosses her legs at the ankles. His hand is flat on the armrest between them, she has to resist an urge to take it in hers.

He steals a quick glance at her before staring back at the door in front of them; for a moment, there's this familiar feeling in her gut that tells her the boy next to her is about to kiss her.

She waits.

He doesn't.

.

First, they go over her test results. She had her blood drawn, last week, and they tested her for a number of things, most of which she doesn't understand, but according to the person they see, it looks like by some strange twist of fate, it all came back negative. Clive doesn't even seem surprised while her heartbeat, on the other hand, goes through the roof. It's funny, how little she worried about these things last time around, how she saw it as a given that unless she had an abortion, the foetus was automatically going to turn into a baby, how she didn't even wait a month to tell Billy. Sure, she didn't want everyone to know, but it was more about her career not being impacted than anything else.

Later on is tricky part, though. On a chair, she's instructed to lie back, somewhere between a flat and seated position and frankly, feels particularly vulnerable, there. Clive is sitting next to her and if they were a thing, a  _couple_ , they'd be sweet and in love and she'd hold his hand but they're not. So, she doesn't. The monitor is turned towards the specialist which she knows is to make sure they don't see anything they're not supposed to see, but just ends up making her feel more irritated at the secrecy of it all. They take her blood pressure so she makes herself to breathe, calm down, but –

"Nervous?" the doctor asks her, smiling as she reads the numbers on her instruments.

She glances at Clive, bites her lip. "A bit."

.

Her leggings are pulled down to her hips, her shirt lifted. "Okay, this may be a bit cold, yeah?" the doctor says and Martha, nods, automatically, stares at the ceiling for a bit.

She hates not being in control. Hates the fact that the two most important things in her life right now – the appeal, the baby – are both her entire responsibility if they go sour and yet, are completely out of her grasp, now. The gel  _is_  cold, indeed, she feels it on her stomach, but it's so hot, roasting in here without air conditioning that it doesn't even really feel uncomfortable. Martha swallows, heavily, sees the doctor about to apply the probe to her stomach when a loud shrill echoes in the room.

At first, she thinks it comes from the monitor. But no, it's a ringtone, she realises almost immediately afterwards. She glances to her side, at the little table where she put her keys, wallet and –

_Phone_. In a millisecond, before the doctor or Clive can even react, her look sets on the screen. She hopes for Charlotte, or her mum, or the guy from Sky who's been trying to book an appointment to come fix her Internet for a week now. Anyone but –

Nick.

And of course, it is Nick.

She's pretty sure her heart stops, then, or at least that's what it feels like. She told him not to call unless he had news, she remembers, so it means that he does and suddenly, the room is too small for her to breathe. She grabs the phone off the table, her finger about to slide on the screen when –

"Oh, I'm sorry, you can't use that here," the lady says, next to her. "With the machines, it's not –"

She looks apologetic, sure, but she also doesn't seem to realise how important this is. "Sorry, it's urgent –" Martha starts but –

"No," the young woman shakes her head. "I really have to insist –"

It's rung twice, in her hand, already. Three more times and she'll lose it. She needs to decide now, she thinks, as it rings again, her brain in slow motion. The scan or the phone. She needs to leave this room, needs to –

"I'll take it."

It's Clive's voice, next to her. He grabs the phone from her hand before she can really think –

"Clive, it's –" she starts explaining, fingers brushing -

"I know," he says, holding her gaze. Her heart hammers against her ribcage. "I'll take it."

.

She thinks he's gone for thirty seconds. She thinks he's gone for thirty minutes, maybe thirty years, even. In the room, the doctor talks to her, thinks her nerves are about the baby, starts moving the probe along her stomach. It's a horrible thought but right now, whatever she's saying really isn't Martha's top priority. If Sean is taken down back into custody and she's not there, she doesn't think she'll ever be able to forgive herself. She's staring at the wall in front of her when she hears the door open again, close behind Clive. Her face immediately turns to his, hold his gaze.

She thinks it's the longest second of her life. The one before which he nods, once, slipping her phone into the pocket of his jeans. She's in free-fall, waiting to pull the strap.

"You won," he mouths, smiles.

The parachute opens, like it always does.

.

Looking back, she doesn't think it sunk in, then. She remembers a million questions on her lips and not being able to ask them because the doctor kept talking, unaware, and she had to try and concentrate when frankly nothing made sense to her, anymore. She looked at Clive, she remembers, and saw him nod, again, when she finally mouthed  _not guilty_  with a frown on her face, like she must have gotten it wrong, understood him wrong, the first time around.

He smiled, nodded again, was about to repeat it when –

"Look," he said, instead, pointing behind her.

And that's how she finds herself here, now, staring at the screen as the sound of their baby's heartbeat fills the room, regular and quick, and Clive has a smile up to his ears. The baby's a girl, as per her test results and from what they can see, and everything that they can test at this stage, there is absolutely nothing wrong with her. She's got arms and legs, and a face that Martha swears has something of her mum's.

She shakes her head in disbelief. "What do you mean she's  _fine_?"

The doctor smiles, slightly amused.

"She's fine, Marth," Clive repeats, catching her gaze like he did when he said  _not guilty_.

She feels his hand holding hers when tears start streaming down her face.

.

The intern in the room insists that she's very far from being the first person to just break down in the middle of the scan but still, when they walk out of the room and nod at the couple waiting outside, she feels a bit pathetic with her red eyes and mascara tracks, and  _perfectly fine_  baby,  _perfectly fine_  client. She wouldn't call them tears of joy, really, as much as tears of relief, the way the tension that had accumulated in her body over the last few months just lifted from her shoulders at once. Nick didn't say much on the phone, she learns, as they walk down the corridor and back into the patio she raced through earlier, just that he'd call back to let her know what time they'd release Sean and that the opinions should come in later today or tomorrow.

In the garden of the patio, she sees flowers she didn't see on the way in, notices the green of the tree in the middle and the stone benches around the square. Clive sits down on the closest one and grabs her wrist before she can walk past, catches her glance.

A part of her wants to pull away but she doesn't, just eyes the way out. His thumb is drawing circles at her pulse point; it's oddly soothing. "I've got to –"

She starts but he shakes his head, smiles up at her. "Stay," he asks, his grasp loosening on her wrist. "Ten minutes. Just you and me."

.

It's warm, outside, and sunny; she feels it between the shade of the leaves of the tree. Her thigh touches the side of his, eyes closed; she breathes. She tries to do it like he does, calm and regular next to her, listens to the rustle of the leaves, strangely covering the sound of the sirens outside. It's beautiful, here, peaceful, she smiles to herself, a hand on her stomach.

She expects him to talk but somehow, the minutes pass and he doesn't, just sits there in silence next to her, watching the scene barely move. In school, she remembers, they read something about the relativity of time, about perceptions and illusions and she wonders how that impacts the currency that he's currently giving her. She doesn't speak either, hasn't been this close to his body in what feels like decades. When she opens her eyes, he's smiling at her.

"I can't believe it's a girl. I can't believe you were right," she chuckles, watching him. He laughs; she feels his chest moving next to her.

"I told you."

His eyes are a bright shade of blue here, lit by the sunlight.

Ten minutes come and go, and: "I've got to head off," she hears herself say, her voice calm and quiet like it rarely is. "Nick –" she starts, sees him shrug, nod.

"Go on," he says, his hand on the small of her back as she pushes herself up. "Go and save the world."

.

Nick tells her not to come into Chambers, on the phone. Tells her to go home and sleep. She can't do that, of course, so she walks around London all afternoon, eats three scoops of ice cream in lieu of lunch. The air is hot, in the city, but there's more of a breeze at the park, it runs in her hair.

She waits for Sean in the shadow of a tree, watches the few people lucky enough not to be working on a Tuesday as they sunbathe on the grass.

(When she went home to change, she put on the sundress that she wore when Clive kissed her under the rain.)

She stands when she sees him, pulls him into a hug, her limbs wrapped around his. With her ear pressed to his chest, she hears his heart as it beats, regular and slow like the waves of the Irish Sea when they were sixteen, running barefoot on the sand of the beach in Blackpool. He used to smell like salt water and iodine; now, it's just cigarettes and prison cells.

She breathes in, anyway. He feels real.

.

They talk shop, for a bit. What time he was released and how, the way it felt to have the cuffs come off his wrists. Sean is ecstatic, of course, but jumpy as well, as Clive would say, from the way his foot won't stop tapping the ground. She extends her bare legs, shoes off, nails red: the only part of her body not shaded by the tree. She wiggles her toes, her shoulder brushing against his, she pulls away, looks up at him.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there this morning," she says.

He smiles, shakes his head and: "Doesn't matter," he says, in a way that makes her think that maybe it does. "Where were you?"

"Hospital."

She pretends that the word slips past her lips but in truth, she  _chooses_  it. It's true, sure, but it also sounds like a necessity. She doesn't owe him anything, maybe, but it still feels like she does, like she had to have one hell of a reason not to show up to court on the day of the verdict.

Hospitals sound dramatic, imperative.

He turns to her, quick, his hand against her arm, worry obvious in his eyes. "Shit, are you –"

"I'm fine," she nods, quiet. His hair is a bit longer than it was before, she notices, a short salt and pepper beard framing his face; she catches herself remembering why he caught her gaze in the first place, all those years ago. He looked a bit gruff back then, too, a bit dangerous.

She used to think she liked that.

Next to him lies a duffle bag. He put it on the floor when they sat down, dark blue with a white zipper on top. She knows what's in there: his wallet, phone, belt – the stuff he was arrested with, - a change of clothes, a toothbrush, maybe. It's a prison bag; she's seen a lot of them before.

"So," she starts. His eyes are closed as she speaks; he looks tired, like someone re-discovering sounds that they haven't heard in a while. It's the one thing that she doesn't know about the criminal justice system, she guesses. When she goes to jail, she gets out, too. Sean listens to the children's laughter as they play ball with their grandfather a few metres to their left, the wind, the sound of her own voice when she's not angry or on the verge of crying. "Back to Manchester?" she asks, looking at him.

He laughs, then, opens his eyes, arching an eyebrow at her. "Fuck, no," he breathes. "Believe it or not, I don't actually have much of a death wish," he adds and weirdly, she catches herself laughing, too, shaking her head at him.

There's a girl, a few metres down, with pink hair and light eyes; she's reading a book, turning page after page like the sirens and the people around her don't exist. The cover is white with blue and gold lettering; it looks oddly poetic.

"On that topic," Sean says and fishes inside the bag, pulls out a long, white envelope, unsealed. "I've got something for you." He hands it to her, fingers brushing.

She's nervous, a bit, adopts Clive's technique and cracks a joke. "Is that a cheque?" she asks, turning the envelope over as she speaks. "'Cause Charlotte has me billing at six hundred quid an hour so I'm pretty sure you can't afford me."

Sean laughs, then, shakes his head and calls her out on being the rich, posh girl that she's never been. "Nah, open it," he says, finally, and watches her as she does.

There are three plane tickets in there. The old fashioned ones that you get at the airport, with the scanning strip at the back and the little detachable stub on the side. The first one leaves from Heathrow to New York at 19:30 tonight. The second one from JFK to Miami tomorrow morning and lastly, from Miami to Belize. They're all under her name, seat 04A – window, she guesses, - then again 03A, and 21C.

"I took them first class when I could, 'cause I thought: 'what the hell?'" he adds, as she stares down at the tickets, holding them between her fingers.

"Belize?" she observes, shaped like a question. She's not sure she could place that on a map.

"Yup," Sean says, catching her gaze. "That's where I'm going, too, in case you're wondering. I've Googled it," he smiles. "They speak English, have beaches and sunsets and, from what I've read, very little tax."

She laughs, again, shakes her head in disbelief, amusement visible in her eyes. It ends with a sigh when she sees him shift, bite his lip.

"Come with me," he says, simple, like she suspected he would.

He smiles at her when she looks away, lets the word roll off her tongue. She doesn't think about it, doesn't need to. "No."

She doesn't say 'I can't.' She doesn't talk about her career, her mum, her flat. She says 'no,' not because she  _can't_ , but because that's her honest answer, the one that she wants to give him. She doesn't _want_  to come. She thinks he knows that, deep down,  _understands_ that, from the way he looks at her, trying to hide a wince. "Now, Martha Costello," he tells her, sad. "You're breaking my adult heart."

She thinks that's probably true, all things considered, just like he broke hers, by going to jail and lying to her; she guesses that makes them even, then. She looks down at her legs, her knees and calves on the grass, white and pale in the sun. She might get a tan, she hopes, or might just get burnt.

"You look different," Sean says, after a while, his glance on the side of her face. She's tempted to laugh, or smile, at least, point out that it's been a year since he's last seen her anywhere that wasn't court or a jail cell, that her hair has grown back and that she's almost forty, now (just like he is), with what seem like new lines on her face every morning. She knows it's not that, though, that she looks different, feels different, now, from who she was when she woke up this morning.

She glances up at him, catches his gaze, smiles. "I'm having a baby," she says.

It was Clive's wording, she remembers, when he took her in his arms and lifted her off the ground, but even though she's said it before, it never really felt like hers until now, until she saw her little face and little hands and feet on the screen this morning. She's not just  _pregnant_ , anymore, she's having a baby, in less than six months, actually. Sean's eyes widen as she thought they would, his mouth dropping slightly open and –

"You're pr-"

"Yeah," she confirms, looking up at him. "I was at a scan, this morning," she adds, because now she can explain, she guesses, what the _imperative_ was.

"How -" Sean starts again, trails off, the syllable of his word hanging in the air on a cloud of uncertainty, a frown on his face.

She puffs out a laugh, mechanically pulling grass from the ground. " _How are babies made?_  You'd think –"

He laughs, too, shakes his head at her. "No, I mean –"

"Clive."

It was what he was going to ask, eventually, she knows, so she might as well tell him. For a very long time, she used to think that it was for Clive to say, if he wanted to, that she didn't want to force that kind of responsibility on him, didn't want to trap him into a situation that he didn't want. But he does seem to want it, now, and she does want to tell Sean, because he's her friend and she wants him to know that she was happy with someone, at least for a while.

Predictably, Sean bursts out laughing, then, bumps his shoulder into hers. "For fuck's sake," he says and she laughs, too, a magpie glaring at them from its spot on a nearby tree, as though awaken by the noise. Sean raises an eyebrow at her when their laughter dies down, a half-smile on his face. "So, you and 'im, eh?" he asks, a bit knowing, a bit mocking, too. "You're a thing?"

She smiles, shakes her head, of course. "Not –" she starts and stops, tries to choose better words.  _Not anymore_ , she wants to say, but then, she doesn't want to tell him why the thing that was isn't, anymore, doesn't want to have that conversation with him, about him, doesn't want to explain why she chose him, back then, but will not choose him now. "It's complicated," she says, instead, and thinks of her mum, of the way  _complicated_  seems to apply to everything that she does.

Sean turns to face her, then, quick, moving to sit by the side of her legs. She finds him staring right back at her, adamant, decisive. "Do you want me to make it less complicated?" he asks, takes her hand in his. She doesn't react, just stares up at him. "Do you love him?" he speaks. "Because if you don't,  _come with me_ ," he reiterates, his voice more serious, this time. It breaks her heart. "I'd be there, you know?" he adds and she breaks eye contact, watches one of the kids playing football score against his grandfather. "Day in, day out. It can call me 'Daddy' if it wants," he breathes. "I'm not the kid I used to be, Mar."

The two brothers celebrate. The grandfather fakes disappointment. She's pretty sure he's letting them win.

For a long time, she doesn't know what to say. Thinks of them when they were kids, the beer bottles they used to steal and the curfews they used to break, the way he used to stand behind her, his arms around her shoulders, whispering dirty things in her ear. He loved her jet black hair, he said it made her look cool.

"I still am, though," she speaks, finally, looking up at him. "The girl in that chip shop near your flat, who wanted to read books and move to London and save the world in a wig and gown –"

"And fuck the Prince with the blond hair and the nice suit," Sean adds between a jab and a joke. She chooses to laugh again, against her better judgment, and nods. She thinks of what she told her client that day: that it wasn't her fault that she wanted more. She still wants more, she thinks. Always will.

They're silent for a bit and she hears him sigh, next to her, bumps his shoulder against hers.

"I think you love him," Sean declares. There's something honest in his voice, sad and quiet, like he knows it's the truth. She looks up and finds it hard to look away. "I think you know that you love him," he smiles, watches her until she does, too. Her eyes close, for a moment; she feels a pain in her chest when he asks: "I never stood a chance, did I?"

She shakes her head. Just like earlier, she tells the truth. "No."

.

Later, he wraps his arm around her and kisses the top of her head like he used to when she lay in his bed back in Bolton, when they were young and he was the only boy who had ever mattered to her. "I love you, Martha Costello," he whispers and she barely moves, closes her eyes. She can feel him breathe, next to her, his chest rising and falling, and even though she doesn't want to kiss him, anymore, she wants to keep him close and tell him that it will be okay, that he'll be happy, one day. "You saved me," he says, his hand softly caressing the skin of her arm.

"It's what friends do."

He sighs next to her, alive, she thinks, and  _free._ They're both free.

She walks him down to the Tube when it's time for him to leave, tells him that yes, it's a girl and no, she doesn't have a name, yet. Pulls him into a hug at the top of the stairs, tries not to notice the tears in his eyes and the tears in hers, too, the last piece of her childhood flying away. It's not homesickness, she thinks, it's just moving on.

"Have you thought of Shona?" he suggests and she bursts out laughing, playfully hits his shoulder with her palm. They'll email, maybe, and he may phone on her birthday, but it's the last thing he's probably ever going to say to her face, she knows. She likes that it is.

"Get off," she says, laughing, and watches him carry his bag down the stairs.

.

She goes back to work, the next day, and the day after that. She checks his flights, online, and smiles when they land. It's nice to get her routine back, with court, and the cases, and the arguments, quick smiles in the clerk's room. Charlotte is happy about the win and the way that it will reflect on Chambers, mentions that CW still looked drunk when she ran into her on Pump Court, the other day. "Shoe Lane should have stuck with defence," she speaks, to herself almost.

On Friday, Jo is in the city for a long weekend so Martha takes the afternoon off. They leave Michael and the kids at the British Museum and go shopping with tonight's party in mind. It's a bar  _ball_  thing to which Martha agreed to go after quite a bit of passive-aggressive argumentation with Charlotte that morning, the clerk noting that: "You used to go to events for Shoe Lane, aren't you happy with your new home?"

As Martha understood it, it meant that after years of  _sucking up_  on Billy's behalf, she now didn't have any excuse not to do it on hers.

The dress code is listed as formal and every gown she owns doesn't fit anymore (on top of the fact that Jo argues you should  _never, ever_  wear the same one twice), so she apparently needs to go and spend another six hundred quid on a new one. After having tried every single blue or black dress in four different shops, she comes to the conclusion that not only the pregnancy stuff looks terrible, but so does the rest. It's either too large or makes her look fat, or reveals too much cleavage, or is  _way_  too tight on her arse. She sits down on a chair outside the fitting room, glares at Jo as if the baby bump they have to navigate around is her fault, and sighs. Maybe, she could use that as an excuse not to go, couldn't she?

"Let  _me_  pick one, okay? You try it on," Jo says, doesn't even let her disagree before she's off talking to the salesperson.

.

The venue is a bit outside of London, in a large mansion that looks like a castle with miles and miles of gardens around the property. She carpools with Jake and Bethany to get there, shares a bit of light-hearted conversation in the cab. Jake is still boxing, from what he says, and Bethany still supporting, her eyes resting on his face as he speaks. When they exit the car, the young woman stays back, purse in hand. People here look familiar, clerks and solicitors and barristers: the biggest night out of the year for the London criminal bar. Martha used to hate these events, dreads them even more now when she can't even drink.

"I meant to say," Bethany smiles, her heels tapping the ground next to her. "Congratulations, Miss," she breathes. "On the trial and –"

'You need to own it,' Jo said, that afternoon. 'It's the only way you're ever going to find something that fits.'

'I –' Martha began, trailed off, looking at her reflection in the mirror. The dress was red, long, draped around her body. The opposite of the black, large thing she was originally looking for.

'You look hot in that, by the way,' Jo added.

She was the one sitting on the chair, now, looking at Martha in the fitting room area. The salesperson nodded, smiling, like salespeople do (like she did for  _every single dress_ before that).

'I look pregnant.'

'You  _are_ pregnant,' Jo laughed, standing behind her. 'I mean, really, how much longer do you think you're going to be able to hide it? You've had the echo, everything's fine, so what are you afraid of, anyway?'

She frowned, sighed, turned on her side. Admittedly the dress didn't look quite as terrible as the others had. It complimented her curves, was bright, red, sexy, but – 'People treat you differently when you're pregnant,' she said.

'Mar, trust me, in a few months, you're going to be like:  _yeah, please, do treat me differently and give me your fucking seat on this fucking bus_!'

The dress was two hundred quid above budget, of course, and Martha ended up getting it anyway. At least, she thought, she wouldn't have to tell people. They'd just see it, she decided.

So: "Thanks," she tells Bethany with a smile.  _Here we go,_ she thinks.

.

She has fun, that night, strangely enough. Talks to Nick and Niamh for a bit, successfully dodges Harriet and indulges in the required amount of  _sucking up_ , gets an approbatory nod from Charlotte as she chats up her third solicitor in a row. It's funny how quickly people switch gears, she notes, as she gets praise after praise over Sean's appeal, as if last year had never happened, as if the murmurs behind her back had just been a dream. She's pretty sure they're all still talking behind her back, now, but for a completely different reason, she muses, sipping orange juice in a champagne glass.

(She does a bit of damage control about  _that,_  too. Reiterates that she's not going anywhere, that she'll keep her cases and that frankly, when she did try to stop working, it didn't suit her.)

People get drunk, eventually, speech too loud for her sober brain so she steps outside for a bit, watches the night fall over the trees. It's a little after nine, the kind of summer evening that goes on forever, silk scarf wrapped around your shoulders. There is a group of young barristers about Nick's age smoking as she walks by; she inhales with envy, goes to sit on the stairs between the terrace and the gardens.

She recognises the sound of his steps when he walks towards her. He stands behind, asks: "Can I?"

She nods, silent, but shifts over to the side a bit, lets him sit. He drops next to her and she recognises his weight, too, the way his body fits next to hers like it did that day at the airport. She smiles to herself. Sean must be on a beach, by now.

Clive has a bottle of beer in his hand; she hears him take a swig before putting it back on the ground. He takes his jacket off, loosens his tie. She guesses the  _sucking up_  is over for him, too. "I'd offer you some," he says. "But –"

She nods, quiet, looking down at the gardens in front of them. There are bushes of lavender and some pink flowers she doesn't know the name of, grass and twisted gravel paths.

Her eyes close, the skin of her bare arm against the fabric of his shirt. She smiles to herself. "You know what I'd really kill for?" she asks. He shakes his head, raises an eyebrow, his eyes slightly darker at dusk, she notes.

She doesn't say anything but just turns a bit to look at the group behind them. He turns, too, and he doesn't look like he understands, at first, until he actually does, lets out a short laugh.

Without saying anything, though, she sees him get up before she can really stop him, or convincingly call after him: " _Clive,"_  with the actual genuine hope that he might listen to her. He's back sitting by her side before she can even count to ten, with a fag and a lighter in his hand. She laughs, shakes her head at him.

"I  _can't_."

"Come on, one cigarette isn't going to kill it, Marth," he breathes. "Plus, you need to celebrate."

Granted, she doesn't need much persuading to be convinced and Clive  _is_ a good lawyer, after all. She lights the Marlboro up and breathes in as he throws the lighter back to the kids with a "Cheers!" shouted back, like someone who didn't go to Harrow.

The first drag is always the best one. She knows that, from the countless times she's stepped outside court after a long day and closed her eyes, rested her head against the wall with music in her ears, breathing in. She does the same thing, now, closes her eyes and lets the nicotine hit her brain. She feels his stare on her face, watching.

"You've become weirdly tolerant of my smoking habits," she says, opening her eyes as she exhales, ash dropping to the ground.

"Just trying to buy your forgiveness with what I can," he says, blunt, catching her gaze. She looks away, covers her silence by taking another drag. He's laid out the topic, already, and usually, this is when she runs away.  _Don't,_ she'd usually say. Now, though, she doesn't, just lets the smoke rest in her throat and tilts her head back, blows three perfect circles up in the air.

Clive smiles, looks at her. "Nice."

"We used to do that when we were kids," she says, quick, taking another drag and repeating the process. Sure, it's a pretty useless skill, but a skill nonetheless. "My friend Jo and I," she explains. "We'd steal menthols from her mum and skip school to practice," she laughs and hears Clive join, his shoulder bumping against hers.

She drops a bit of ash on the floor as she speaks, eyeing the park in front of them. She turns to him, holds the cigarette between them. It's half-smoked, tainted with her lipstick, Clive raises an eyebrow and she chuckles at the look on his face.

"Don't tell me you've never tried," she tells him.

He smiles, pouts. "Do joints twenty years ago count?"

He takes her up on her challenge, though, reminds her of boys trying to look cool in front of girls in school. He breathes in, tentatively, and almost coughs his lungs out in the process. She laughs – like girls did, back then – and takes her cigarette back between her fingers. "Apparently not," she notes, amused, and he smiles, half coughing and laughing at the same time. She takes a few more drags to finish it, before killing it on the steps.

"You know," Clive starts as she does, looking at her. The night is falling, slowly, steadily; it's a bit darker than it was when he sat down. "That dress is making quite the statement," he notes, watches her laugh and glance up at him, a playful twinkle in her eyes.

"Is it?" she smiles, thinks about how Jo nicknamed it the  _Pregnancy Public Announcement_   _Dress_  earlier, at the shop. And it's true, she was right. It's beautiful, and perfect, and she looks pregnant in it and maybe, it's time that she actually does.

"I've had five people ask if I knew who the father was already," he says and she laughs, shaking her head at him. So people  _are_ talking about it, she confirms to herself. Weirdly, she catches herself thinking  _good_ , too.

She raises an amused eyebrow at him. "What did you say?"

He makes her laugh again, lipstick framing her teeth, little lines forming at the corner of her eyes. "Bob from accounting, naturally," he says and when their laughter dies out, she catches him looking at her with a smile on his face, the kind of look he used to have when he watched her doing her hair in the morning, when he thought she wasn't looking.

"What?" she asks, a bit shy, running her tongue over her lip.

"You have a great laugh, Martha Costello."

A small breath escape her lips, then, when she recognises the words, somewhere between a sigh and a smile. If the compliment weren't so loaded, she'd probably say her thanks, go a bit red in the cheeks. Right now, though, all she can think about is how his lips felt against hers when he kissed her back then, sitting on a bench in a different park. She tenses, wonders what he's thinking, and whether or not she still loves him, thinks of Sean and her mum and suddenly she can't look at him, anymore, stares out in front of her, the trees slightly moving with the wind.

"I quite like your arse, too," Clive jokes, quick, and she chuckles, shakes her head at him while playfully hitting his shoulder, thinks  _thank you,_ thinks  _I'm sorry._

.

As the minutes pass, neither of them moves to go back in. She could still do a bit of sucking up and he probably should go back to playing Shoe Lane's infamous Head of Chambers but frankly, she doesn't really want to be anywhere but here. It's calm, quiet; she can watch time go by without feeling like she's committing a deadly sin. He tells her about CW's latest drunken exploits and she chastises him for his double standards, tells her about his parents and their latest cruise on the Mediterranean on this however-many-feet yacht that a distant relative hired for a family gathering. She thinks her mum and Roy went to Brighton, one weekend, recently.

His beer has been empty for a while when she feels him fish inside his pocket for his wallet, pulling a paper out before placing it back inside his trousers. He nudges her shoulder and hands it to her, she's not quite sure what it is at first, until –

"They gave it to me after you left," he says. She looks down, takes the paper between her fingers; it's thicker than it should be – she understands what it is as soon as she turns it over.

It's not like you can see much, really. The photograph is dark and a bit granular but she can distinguish the shape, a head, feet, arms. She feels Clive leaning in next to her, looking at the picture.

"I've spent the last two days just staring at it," he admits, a bit sheepish. "Can you imagine we made this?"

It's a bit weird, she thinks, to say the least. It's a bit weird that it's  _inside_  her, too. There's a little person, now, growing in there, and soon enough she'll be out here, breathing, crying, and their primary duty is going to be to protect her, and raise her, and support her, for the rest of their lives. It's not only weird, she muses, it's terrifying, daunting – she was so worried about losing it she never really wondered if she could do it.

She smiles, though, remembers her as she moved on the monitor; she had to wipe the tears from her eyes to see.

"Best thing to ever come out of us, isn't it?" she says, finally, and Clive nods, smiles.

"Yeah."

She keeps looking at the picture with him for a while, lit by the last remnants of sunlight and the outdoor lamps on the terrace; she turns the picture to the left at some point and laughs, feels his questioning look on her face.

"What?" he asks, frowning.

"It looks like a bird."

"Come on," Clive starts, faking an eye-roll. She doesn't let him go on, though, insists, giggles in her voice.

" _Look_ , I swear!" she says. "If you turn it like that," she adds, tilting it a bit and passing it onto him, their fingers brushing. "It's got a beak, like a parrot."

Clive laughs, shakes his head at her. "That's her hand, Marth. She's sucking her thumb."

She bursts out laughing, then, catches his gaze. He's smiling, too. "Well, I know that. I'm just saying, from that angle, it kind of looks like –"

She doesn't get to finish her sentence, then, because he kisses her. Her laughter and words die against his mouth and he's quiet, tentative, lips barely moving before he pulls away. Her heart hammers against her chest,  _ta-dam, ta-dam, ta-dam,_ when he does, holds onto her stare as she open hers eyes, fights a strange, almost overpowering urge to kiss him again.

She's the first one to break eye contact, looking around them and at the venue, people engrossed in conversation a few metres from them. "A bit public," she notes, the only thing that comes to her mind then, a combined rush of hormones and thoughts preventing any other coherent remarks from making it to her brain.

"Do you mind?" he asks, and frankly, she doesn't know if she's referring to the  _public_  or the  _kissing_  part of whatever just happened, but can't really bring herself to care. Instead, she fumbles around and retrieves the photo from her lap, hands it back to him.

"Here," she says. Her fingers shake, a bit; he takes her hand, pushes it away.

"No," he breathes. "Keep it."

And again, the sky is a bit darker than it was the last time she paid attention to it, as she slips the photo inside her purse. Almost night. A few people have left already; she can hear the music coming from inside, only periodically covered by intermittent sounds of chatter. She pulls her scarf tighter around her shoulders, feels the wind graze her skin.

Clive smiles, the lights from inside the house reflecting in his eyes.

"She's going to be just like you," he says.

She laughs. "God, I hope not."

"Brave, strong, pale," he starts; the ghost of a smile forming upon his lips. " _Hopefully_  saying no to all the boys."

She laughs, then, letting her gaze cross his again. She realises that yes, he's probably going to be that kind of father, screening everyone who'll come within ten feet of their daughter, while she'll be the one buying the condoms and telling her she shouldn't rely on anyone else for her own safety. It's a funny thought, really, oddly domestic and strangely, not that scary.

"Selfish, though," she says, swallowing, glancing up at him. And maybe that was the key, wasn't it, to them talking? Maybe, she needed to be the one to breathe, the one to start, to let it happen. "Career-hungry," she quotes, something he said or something she understood, that night. "Won't care about anyone but herself –"

She thinks he feels the shift in her tone before he even understands her words; she bites her bottom lip and looks away. Sometimes, can't bring herself to even lay a glance on him. She's angry, hurt, has been so for quite some time, now, in spite of all of the chuckles and light conversation they've had, lately. She likes holding his hand until she remembers how it crushed hers.

"Marth," he starts. She shakes her head. "I didn't mean –"

"Oh, don't tell me you didn't mean it – " she snaps. The words are too quick, a bit harsh; it's not  _really_  what she means, not  _really_  what she wants to say to him. "I just –" she starts, sighs. He's looking at her, she knows, feels his gaze against the side of her face but she makes a conscious effort not to look back, just stares at the night and at the trees far away. "I think we always mean the things we say when we say them," she declares. "Or else we wouldn't say them in the first place."

It's a bit of an unbeatable argument, she knows, one she's always held dear, in every fight she's ever had. Anger is when truth comes out, isn't it? She thinks he really did think that and wanted to hurt her with it. What a bloody success.

She hears a smile in his voice, then, a shake of his head. "You can be wrong, though," he argues.

"About what?"

As she speaks, someone laughs loudly, in the background, inside the venue; it makes her miss the moment when he does, quietly, too. Catches her gaze, shrugs. "Everything?"

She sees his hand, resting on his knee and wonders if he'd still let her rest hers on top of his. They used to do that, she remembers, they'd sit face to face and she'd trace the line of his knuckles, wonder if he'd move to catch her hand when she fell.

"No," she tells him. It sounds certain, like when she spoke with Sean that afternoon. "Not everything," she pauses. "I chose Sean. Over her. Over you. You were right about that."

She speaks like it's a fact, in truth, because that's exactly what it is. A fact, a choice that she made. Of course, she didn't think of it in those terms, back then, felt like damage control, like trying to catch fog through her fingers, but that's what it was. She did that, chose that and oddly, it's easier to admit it to him, now, than it was admitting it to herself.

"I knew the risks," she breathes, wishes she still had that cigarette in her hand to push smoke out of her lungs. "I chose his life over the possibility of hers and I don't even regret it. As her father, you have every right to hate me for that."

Because yeah, it's always the case, isn't it? The fights that hurt the most are the ones where the things that are said are true. When weaknesses are exploited, flaws hung on walls for everyone to see. Clive wasn't wrong about everything. He was right, actually, about most of it.

In her life, there are things that she knows, certainties that she's survived. Leaving her father behind. Clients going to jail. Losing the baby, losing Clive. Billy. Those were things that she'd done before.  _Sean_ , though –

She sat there, in front of him, and thought – knew – that he was right. That every single minute he spent in that jail brought him closer to a death sentence. And if they isolated him, he wouldn't stay sane for long, either. If he died, by her fault, because she didn't want to help him, because she didn't want to  _try_ , well, she wasn't certain that she could survive  _that_. He was there, breathing, living, needing to be saved. It never occurred to her to put a foetus before that. To put her relationship before that. She chose him. Would choose him again. Won't choose him now, though. He's not the one who needs her anymore.

"God," she hears herself say, shaking her head, almost forgetting where she is. "I'm already a terrible mother, aren't I?"

Clive laughs, shakes his head. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard you say."

The words come quick with a look of utter disbelief on his face. It's strange, though, it's something that Jo could have said, she knows, out of support and friendship. Something that Billy would have said, too, out of love, maybe. But not Clive. He only ever tells the truth, doesn't he?

"I –" she starts, confused -

When he speaks, she notices, he glances up at her with a look of raw honesty that she's only seen on his face once before, when he stood next to her and said: 'I meant what I said.' She remembers the courtroom that felt stronger, taller, bigger than the both of them and: "You're everything I want her to be," he says, now, smiles something proud and sad at the same time, like a parent afraid to let go of the back of a bike as their child rides away. She wants him to teach their daughter to cycle, she muses, the three of them on cold winter Sunday afternoons. "I thought that you'd lose the trial, the baby, that'd you'd fuck off to Bali again or – or worse," he says, pauses. She looks up, thinks of bridges and cold, dark rivers. "I thought I'd lose you when all I had to do was to trust you."

"Clive, I –"

"You made the right decision, Marth, a hundred times over. You don't need me. I need  _you_. You're a lot stronger than I'll ever be."

There are stars in the sky that night and when she looks up, they feel like the sunlight coming through the stained glass at the Church. She remembers the day that he called her  _brave,_  once upon a time, wonders if that's what he meant by it. If it is, she hates it. Hates herself for even being able to make a decision she didn't want to make, for doing pros and cons with two things that she could die for. All  _she_ wants is for that baby to be anything but that, wants her to be kind and smart, and caring, like he is. She guesses they're allowed their differences of opinions on that. She feels a ball blocking her breaths in her throats and yeah, maybe she is strong, but she isn't sure that she wants to ever feel as alone as she did, back then. She swallows her tears, quiet, for a long while, her hand caressing the fabric of her dress and looks up at him, eventually.

"I do love her, you know," she tells him. "So, so much."

He smiles, wraps an arm around her shoulder, her head in the crook of his neck. "I know," he says and finally: "I'm sorry."

.

It's a while before they move again; disentangle from an embrace. She holds onto him and breathes in the scent of his cologne; he smells like early morning and kisses dropped like butterflies on her skin. She feels him shift slightly, a little while after the last group of people out on the terrace have gone, shakes her head  _no._  "Don't move," she pleads.

Clive laughs, next to her. "What if I need to go to the loo, then?" he asks and she smirks, shakes her head again, against his shoulder.

"No," she states, eyes still shut. "You're too comfortable."

He makes fun of her for a bit, sure, but he doesn't seem to disagree very strongly, either. They stay a while longer, her body absentmindedly swaying to the rhythm of the music still playing behind them. She feels his left hand move, though, from the side of his thigh to somewhere between them.

"Again, this is going to sound stupid," he starts and she laughs, finally opens her eyes and pulls away enough to lace her fingers with his, hands on her midriff, over the fabric of her dress. She wishes it weren't there, really, wishes she could feel his skin upon hers, like last time, but she feels warm, anyhow, wonders if the baby can feel it too.

She hasn't slept properly in months, and yet, now, she feels calm, next to him. She's not sure what they are, but he makes her feel like she could try.

Clive's hand rests upon her stomach for a while, even after hers leaves it. His fingers tap a beat to the music, slow, peaceful, boys singing about girls again. His shoulder bumps into hers and she lets them move a bit, in sync, slow pace and voices accompanying the tiniest movements of his body against hers.

"Hello, there," he says, to the baby, and she smiles, tries very hard not to chuckle at him. He crosses her gaze, raises an eyebrow. "Maybe it's time for you to start talking to her too…" he jokes and she smiles, nods.

Her voice is a bit shy when she admits: "I have. A bit." His fingers finally leave her stomach and he takes her hand in his again, in the space between their thighs. "I asked her to stay," she whispers.

"Well, I guess she listens to you then."

He's silent for a bit; when she looks into his eyes, she thinks he's trying to find words, struggling for the right thing to say.

"Marth," he speaks again, hesitant. "I know you don't need me but I'd really, really like to be part of her life," he admits, catching her gaze. It's funny: he looks insecure about it, unsure of her reaction in a way that she really, really isn't.

She smiles, nods, once, like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Another song comes on, in the background, and he starts swaying to the music a bit more intently this time, her body stirring in sync next to his. He smiles, takes her hand in his. "Come on, dance with me," he speaks, helping her to her feet.

They danced, in Nottingham, she remembers. Laughed too loud in a hotel bar with boring jazzy music soft in the background - the kind of playlist that has  _Fly Me To The Moon_ , Diana Krall and Melody Gardot inadvertently blending into one another. He singsonged Norah Jones'  _Turn Me On_  in her ear, she recalls, as he now puts his hands on hips, lets her move to the music in his arms. It feels different yet similar, better, clearer, like a black and white film that's been colourized.

The song makes her think of ocean waves as they ruffle the sand on the shore.

_I try to hide that I need you like I need the sky to light up at night, so I can see where I'm going, when I'm walking to you._

They don't move much, at first. She's so close she can hear his heart beat, feel his breaths in her hair. It's nice, out here; she thinks that she could stay forever. She listens to the lyrics, closes her eyes, thinks about him.

_And that you seem to be the air that I breathe and the last thing I think of as I fall asleep but recently, I'm starting to feel like I'll be slipping away at the end of the day into dreams of the two of us, running away. It's okay, I'll just say I was drunk yesterday and hope that you still want to stay._

She laughs, then. Loud, uncaring in the night. She laughs because as the chorus starts ( _and I call you up, in the middle of the night -_ ) he pushes her from him with a swift change of positions and has her spinning on her toes in her dress in the middle or a party that most people have left and doesn't seem to care. She laughs like she hasn't laughed in a long time and when his arm wraps around her again, she tilts her head up at him, her feet rooted to the ground.

She looks up at him and  _God_ , she thinks, there are about a million things that she'd like to say to him. She'd like to tell him that she loves him. That she forgives him. That she hopes he can forgive her. That she doesn't know where they're going, or where they are, of if she really needs him but whatever  _this_  is, now, she wants  _that_. Not a couple, not a relationship, not something to be trapped in: just _them_ , now.

"I –" she starts, stops, watches his face as he tries to read her mind. She smiles and she'll tell him, she promises herself as she looks into his eyes. She'll tell him all these things, but not now. Now, she decides, she wants to kiss him, so she does, her lips against his with her fingers in his hair and his hands cascading down to her hips; he holds her close, like he'll never let go. She smiles when she pulls away, out of breath.

"I love you," she hears him say and smiles up at him, a mischievous grin on her lips.

"Yeah?" she asks, bites her lip. "I think I do too."

.

She's finally agreed to let go of him to lean down and grab her purse from the ground, later on when: "Marth?" he says, tentative. She looks up, waits for him to speak. "Are we –" he starts as she moves again, comes to stand in front of him. "Are we okay?"

Well, she thinks as she crosses his gaze, she doesn't know. She knows some things. Knows, again, that she loves him, that she wants this baby with him, and that he matters. But she can't make him promises that she's not sure she can keep. She has a feeling that there will be times when they won't be okay. She suspects fireworks and real murderous bushfires, flames meant to destroy. She'll panic. It will be 4 a.m. and she'll be six months pregnant and they will both be working at her kitchen table; she'll be curt and horrible and ask him how the hell does he expect them to do that with a baby? "You don't live here, she doesn't have  _a room_ ," she'll rant. "We're not  _married_. We're not functional just –"

He'll be there, though. He'll smile, catch her wrists to make look at him. It will drive her insane, his calm during raging storms. "Do you want to get married? 'Cause I'm free after 2 p.m. tomorrow."

She'll look at him, then, her heart racing. It will seem logical, the thoughts speeding through her head, like the rational choice, the one people make for taxes and inheritance, but –

"No," she'll say, anyway. It's not something that she wants, not for them.

He'll laugh, kiss her lips. "Yeah, I thought so," he'll say, knowingly. "Lucky I won't take that personally."

.

On the rest, they'll settle. On living arrangements, functionality and work hours. Her flat will be their home base, but he'll keep his in case they get sick of each other's faces. If needed, Clive's career is the one that will take a step back. She disagrees, at first, doesn't want him to compromise but: "I wanted silk and I got silk, Marth," he'll tell her, once, a bit too loud, trying to make her  _understand._  "Then I wanted to get Head of Chambers, and I got that, too. Now what? Sit around for twenty years like bloody Alan waiting for my shoulder to get tapped? I love this job, Marth, but it's always mattered to you more than it did to me."

So yes, they're not normal. They're not the average parent, lovers, and they'll fall, sometimes, but you can't hate someone as much as she hated him once upon a time without being stupidly, madly in love with them.  _It's you and me_ , she thinks, now, like it's always been. Even Sean and her mum seem to know that it will always be. "I think we will be okay," she tells him, and: "Come home with me."

.

The first time she texts him  _she moved_ , she's in court, her hand on the much, much bigger bump on her belly hidden under her gown and he texts back:  _What? Your mum? Again?_

She laughs so hard it feels like she can't breathe, has to hide it behind a cough when the judge throws her strange look.

Later, thirty-eight weeks in and she feels enormous, bored to death stuck at home since Charlotte more or less escorted her out of Chambers a week before claiming that  _no,_ they couldn't run the risk of her giving birth in the middle of a hearing. They've freed the spare room in her flat of the dozens of boxes of junk she'd stored in there ever since she'd moved in, but they still don't have a name. They keep throwing the most ridiculous suggestions at one another until Clive tries to push her for a serious one, one night, and she rolls her eyes at him and says: "Oh, for God's sake, it can wait!"

The music goes dead, later that night, in her apartment, and when she asks him to go and switch the disks, he takes a bit long, comes back with a sharpie and her copy of  _I'm A Fool To Want You_ , circles the name three times.

"You're serious," she states, already knows he is as she looks at his face.

"I wouldn't have brought it up if I wasn't."

Billie Ann Costello-Reader is born on the 9th of January 2016 and she's the most beautiful thing either of them has ever seen.

.

On that one summer night, though, months before, he comes home with her from a party she almost didn't go to and she falls asleep with her head on his chest and his fingers tracing patterns around her bellybutton. She thinks of that song, again, while they danced, of the way it went:

_And I know we'll have to pretend that we're fine for a night but then again I know you know that we'll be all right in the end._

_._

**The End.**

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] I have a book in mind for the girl reading in the park when Martha chats with Sean. It's Lyrebird by Cecelia Ahern. Highly recommend.
> 
> [2] Fly Me To The Moon by Frank Sinatra
> 
> [3] Turn Me On by Norah Jones
> 
> [4] Call You Up by Viola Beach (song quoted in italics at the end, if you're wondering).
> 
> [5] I'm A Fool To Want You by Billie Holiday
> 
> .
> 
> Again, thank you. I hope you liked this. If so (or if not), please tell me so. Again, more thoughts on tumblr tomorrow, same username. And just so you know, I have an incredible amount of cut scenes and words that didn't make it into this so some of it will be published at some point, some day. For short things, again, I only put them on Tumblr. Longer things are here and on ff.
> 
> Love, P.


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